Thursday 15 March 2012

The magical power of 'if' and 'because'...

When you are under pressure in your IELTS speaking exam, or any other English exam for that matter, it's all too easy for your teachers' good pieces of advice to go right out of your head.

The best piece of advice I ever heard about improving your IELTS Speaking band by up to a whole point in one easy move is this: whatever question you are asked, try to get an 'if' or a 'because' into your answer.  Why?  Because those two simple everyday words take your language to a whole new level - you enter the world of speculation, prediction, imagination, explanation...

So here we have a basic question and answer from the early part of an IELTS Speaking test:
Examiner: Do you work or are you a student?
You: I'm a student.

There's nothing wrong with that, but this exchange will be putting all sorts of positive ideas into the examiner's mind:
Examiner: Do you work or are you a student?
You: I'm an IELTS student at the moment, but if I get a good score in this exam I'm going to study for a Business degree at the university.

How about these examples:

Examiner: Tell me about a festival in your country.
You (before you learnt about the magic words): Chinese New Year is very important.  We spend time with our families.

Examiner: Tell me about a festival in your country.
You (after you learnt about the magic words): Chinese New Year is very important, because it's an opportunity to spend time with our families.  If I have enough money I want to go back to China for New Year....

You don't need to add long or complicated 'ifs' and 'becauses' to everything you say in the test, but if you try really hard to get in at least a few, your language rises from basic description to something far more interesting and meaningful.

So, even if you forget all the other advice you've received, remember the two magic words....

1 comment:

  1. Thanks, Julia. that's really helpful.
    I showed this to my students who are taking IELTS next week and they absolutely loved your simple advice.

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