Band descriptors course, writing task 2 ielts-simon.

study

Lesson 7: improving a student’s essay

- How can the essay that we saw in lesson 6 be improved?

- What could a teacher do to help the student who wrote that essay?

First, let’s use the band descriptor ‘tool’ from lesson 1 to highlight the strengths and weaknesses
of the essay:

Band descriptor phrases Approximate score

1 Address all parts of the task 6

2 Present a clear position 6 or 7

3 Extend and support main ideas 6

4 Organise ideas logically 7

5 Progression of ideas 7

6 Cohesive devices 7 or higher

7 Paragraphs with a clear central topic 7

8 Vocabulary range, flexibility and precision 7

9 Less common vocabulary, collocations, style 7

10 Range of grammatical structures 7 or higher

11 Mistakes, error-free sentences 6 or 7





Notice that I’ve highlighted the weaknesses in yellow. These are the areas that need particular
attention.

However, as a teacher, I would talk to the student about the strengths of the essay first. This
student is on the right path, and I want to encourage him/her to keep building on those strengths.

So, in the next part of this lesson, I’ll talk about improving the essay, and I’ll address the scoring
criteria in this order:

1. Vocabulary: a strong point in this essay

2. Cohesion: also a strong point
3. Grammar: a few key corrections need to be made
4. Task response and coherence: we need to make some bigger changes here
Here are the improvements that you see me make in the video:

1) Lexical resource

It is certainly true that computers have become a vital tool for people to learn history and art.
However, while computers are extremely useful because they allow us to see historical and artistic
items and works, I do not agree with the idea that museum and galleries could become
unnecessary because of modern computer technology.
 
There are several advantages to using computer in learning historical and artistic objects. Firstly,
computers allow individuals to learn more knowledge regarding historical and artistic works easily
and economically. This means that if people want to see mummification, they can have easily
access to the internet rather than flying to Egypt. Secondly, some extremely valuable treasures
may not be shown to public for security reasons. As a result, tourists may be disappointed when
they are not allowed to see their favourite exhibits and computers therefore are the only way for
people to know about historical items. Finally, museum and galleries could make people feel
insecure by using numerous of security cameras while computers do not.
 
However, despite all the advantages that I said before, computers cannot replace museum and
galleries and make them useless. It is believed that museum and galleries collect a great deal of
iconic treasures in many countries, and they are the best way to see historical and artistic works
because of their reality and uniqueness. Touching computer do not provide people an authentic
atmosphere as in real museum. Apart from this, computers sometimes have fake information which
may lead people to having the wrong idea.
 
In conclusion, it seems to me that museum and galleries are useful and irreplaceable, though there
are some benefits to using computers to see antique objects. It is much reasonable to use
computer as a tool to support museum and galleries.

Note: the word “stuffs” doesn’t exist. “Stuff” is uncountable.

2) Cohesion.

It is certainly true that computers have become a vital tool for people to learn history and art.
However, while computers are extremely useful towards seeing historical and artistic stuffs, I do
not agree with the idea that museum and galleries could be scrapped because of modern
computer technology.
 
There are several advantages to using computer in learning historical and artistic objects. Firstly,
computers allow individuals to learn more knowledge regarding historical and artistic works easily
and economically. This means that if people want to see mummification, they can have easily
access to the internet rather than flying to Egypt. Secondly, some extremely valuable treasures
may not be shown to public for security reasons. As a result, tourists may be disappointed when
they are not allowed to see their favourite stuffs and computers therefore are the only way for
people to know about historical items. Finally, museum and galleries could impose people insecure
feelings by using numerous of security cameras while computers do not.
 
However, despite all the advantages that *I mentioned above, computers cannot replace museum
and galleries and make them useless. It is believed that museum and galleries collect a great deal
of iconic treasures in many countries, and they are the best way to see historical and artistic works
because of their reality and uniqueness. Touching computer do not provide people an authentic
atmosphere as in real museum. Apart from this, computers sometimes have fake information which
may lead people having wrong concepts.
 
In conclusion, it seems to me that museum and galleries are useful and irreplaceable, though there
are some benefits to using computers to see antique stuffs. It is much reasonable to use computer
as a tool to support museum and galleries.

*I deleted the word “I” by mistake in the video.

3) Grammatical range and accuracy
 
It is certainly true that computers have become a vital tool for people to learn about history and art.
However, while computers are extremely useful towards seeing historical and artistic stuffs, I do
not agree with the idea that museums and galleries could be scrapped because of modern
computer technology.
 
There are several advantages to using computers to learn about historical and artistic objects.
Firstly, computers allow individuals to learn more knowledge regarding historical and artistic works
easily and economically. This means that if people want to see mummification, they can have easy
access to the internet rather than flying to Egypt. Secondly, some extremely valuable treasures
may not be shown to the public for security reasons. As a result, tourists may be disappointed
when they are not allowed to see their favourite stuffs, and computers are therefore the only way
for people to know about historical items. Finally, museums and galleries could impose people
insecure feelings by using numerous security cameras, while computers do not.
 
However, despite all the advantages that I said before, computers cannot replace museums and
galleries and make them useless. It is believed that museum and galleries collect a great deal of
iconic treasures in many countries, and they are the best way to see historical and artistic works
because of their reality and uniqueness. Computers do not provide people with an authentic
atmosphere as in a real museum. Apart from this, computers sometimes have fake information
which may lead people having the wrong concepts.
 
In conclusion, it seems to me that museums and galleries are useful and irreplaceable, though
there are some benefits to using computers to see antique stuffs. It is more reasonable to use
computers as a tool to support museums and galleries.
4) Task response

To really improve the task response score, we need to rethink everything highlighted in
orange.
 

It is certainly true that computers have become a vital tool for people to learn history and art.
However, while computers are extremely useful towards seeing historical and artistic stuffs, I do
not agree with the idea that museum and galleries could be scrapped because of modern
computer technology.
 
There are several advantages to using computer in learning historical and artistic objects. Firstly,
computers allow individuals to learn more knowledge regarding historical and artistic works easily
and economically. This means that if people want to see mummification, they can have easily
access to the internet rather than flying to Egypt. Secondly, some extremely valuable treasures
may not be shown to public for security reasons. As a result, tourists may be disappointed when
they are not allowed to see their favourite stuffs and computers therefore are the only way for
people to know about historical items. Finally, museum and galleries could impose people insecure
feelings by using numerous of security cameras while computers do not.
 
However, despite all the advantages that I said before, computers cannot replace museum and
galleries and make them useless. It is believed that museum and galleries collect a great deal of
iconic treasures in many countries, and they are the best way to see historical and artistic works
because of their reality and uniqueness. Touching computer do not provide people an authentic
atmosphere as in real museum. Apart from this, computers sometimes have fake information which
may lead people having wrong concepts.
 
In conclusion, it seems to me that museum and galleries are useful and irreplaceable, though there
are some benefits to using computers to see antique stuffs. It is much reasonable to use computer
as a tool to support museum and galleries.
Finally, here’s my ‘band 9’ version of the essay. Listen to how I analyse it in the video
lesson.

Computers allow people to see works of art and important historical items without having to travel
to a museum or gallery. While this is useful and convenient, I completely disagree with the idea
that these institutions have become unnecessary as a result.
 
In my opinion, people should have access to digital images of historical objects and works, and we
should also be able to see them up close in museums and galleries. To take just one example,
many people are unable to travel to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and it is far easier and more
economical for them to view images of ancient Egyptian treasures online. However, this does not
mean that the Egyptian museum has become redundant. It would be wrong to hide those treasures
away from the thousands of visitors who do wish to see them in person.
 
A photograph on a screen cannot replace the experience of visiting a museum or gallery. For
example, an image cannot convey the size of a dinosaur skeleton, such as the one on display at
the Natural History Museum in London, or the brilliance of a painting like the Mona Lisa by da
Vinci. In fact, images of these exhibits seem to inspire more people to travel to see them in person.
Public museums and galleries are special places because they connect us with our ancestors, with
historical events, or with the artistic geniuses of the past. This connection is almost impossible to
achieve through an image on computer.
 
In conclusion, I would argue that public museums and galleries are irreplaceable, regardless of the
wealth of pictures and information that we can access through our computers.

(276 words)