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- [Chris] Chris here from IELTS Advantage,
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and in this lesson we're going to look at
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the most common words in
Band 7, 8, and 9 essays.
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What I did was I asked my team to give me
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100 Band 7, 8, and 9 essays
that we had corrected,
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that we had given our
students feedback on,
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and those students have gone
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on to get either a Band 7, 8, or 9.
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And what we've done is we've analyzed
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all of the words in these 100 essays
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so that we can help you guys
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learn what the most common words are.
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We're going to look at the top 20 words,
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and the percentage of the
top 20 words is unbelievable,
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so stay tuned for that one.
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Then we're gonna look
at the top 20 keywords,
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or the top 20 nouns that kept
coming up again and again.
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This is gonna help you
with those common topics
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that come up in Task 2.
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Then we're going to look at
the most common linking words,
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and we're also going to analyze
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the percentage of high-level words
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and the highest-level words
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that were in these Band 7, 8, and 9,
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we're going to give you a list.
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And if you stay until
the end of the video,
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we're going to give you a link
to the most powerful resource
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for Band 7, 8, and 9 students for free.
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So how we teach our VIP students
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is very different to how most schools,
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most courses, most online teachers
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teach their students about vocabulary.
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What we do is we emphasize
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that students should keep it simple,
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whereas most other schools emphasize
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that in order to improve your score,
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you should use mostly high-level words.
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We focus more on accuracy
and helping students
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be as accurate as
possible with their words,
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whereas most other schools emphasize
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improving the range of your vocabulary.
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We do don't really help students
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improve the range of their vocabulary.
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What we do instead is we help them
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use their existing vocabulary
to improve their score.
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Whereas other schools,
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especially online, especially YouTube,
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they encourage you to learn lists of words
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and then put those words into your essays.
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We focus more on topic-specific words,
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whereas most schools
focus on complex words.
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So we're going to look at the data now
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and we're gonna see who is the winner
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and which one is going to
help you improve your score.
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So when we looked at
all 100 of those essays,
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these were the top 20 words,
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words like the, to, of, and,
in, that, are, this, they.
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In fact, just these 20 words made up 33.5,
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more than 1/3 of the
total words in essays.
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The was the most popular word,
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to was the second most popular word.
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So what does this teach you?
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Well, number one, the
vast majority of the words
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that you're going to be using
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are going to be very,
very, very simple words.
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So a problem that we see a
lot is students focus too much
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on improving the range and
complexity of their vocabulary
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and they don't focus
too much on these words.
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What we do with our students
is we teach them how to crawl,
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we teach them how to walk
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before we teach them how to run.
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The other interesting
thing about these words
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is it shows that it is impossible
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to write a good essay
without repeating some words.
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Try and write a Band 9
or even a Band 6 essay
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without repeating some of these
words over and over again.
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So if your teacher is teaching you
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that you can never repeat
a word, show them this.
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It's impossible to write an essay
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without repeating these common words.
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So don't worry if you
repeat these common words.
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So let's see who's the winner
for these common words.
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Simple, I think we get that one.
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Accuracy, focus on using
the simple words accurately
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rather than trying to improve range.
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I think we win that one.
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Use existing vocabulary.
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This is, you know, every
student we work with,
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this is within their existing vocabulary,
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so we don't have to
teach them anything new.
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Topic-specific,
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there's no real
topic-specific words in there,
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there's no real complex words in there.
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so we'll call that one a draw.
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Here are the top 10 keywords
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that we find in those 100 essays.
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We used a a very broad range of questions
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and these were the top 10.
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So people, children, time, companies,
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parents, life, school,
health, employees, and diet.
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Again, very simple words.
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As you'll notice, all of
them are about people.
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Even companies are just made up of people,
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people go on a diet, employees are people.
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So you better get used
to writing about people.
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Most of these are very topic-specific.
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So you'd say education,
that could also be health.
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Parents, education, health as well.
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School, education, health,
health, diet, health.
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What are the two most
common Task 2 topics?
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Education and health.
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So if you're focusing on,
you know, big complex words,
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like plethora for example is a
very common word that we see.
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How does plethora help you
write about education or health?
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It doesn't.
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Simple words that are topic-specific
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help you write about these things.
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Also, if you know people
is going to come up,
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children is going to come up,
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you should have synonyms ready
that you know are accurate
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so that you can vary your
vocabulary as much as possible.
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I know we said that it's
okay to repeat a word,
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but you should try also
to vary your vocabulary
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as much as you can.
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So let's see who's the winner here.
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Simple, of course, accuracy,
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use existing vocabulary,
there's nothing new in there,
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and topic-specific.
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Now let's look at the
most common linking words.
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Some people call these linkers,
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some people call these cohesive devices,
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but they're all words like this,
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and these are the most
common ones that we find
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in those 100 Band, 7, 8, and 9 essays.
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For example, in conclusion,
however, although,
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for instance, as a result, and therefore.
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Again, very simple.
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All of these are just
functional and practical,
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because we teach our students
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what the examiners are
going to think about these.
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The examiners do not give you extra marks
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for having complex, fancy linking words.
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They give you extra marks
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for using them appropriately
and accurately.
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So it's much better to just
learn a few simple ones
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and use them appropriately and accurately
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than it is to learn a bunch of ones
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that are very complex and
take up a lot of time.
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So if we just take this
for example, in conclusion,
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how many conclusions
are you going to write?
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Are you going to write
more than one conclusion?
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No.
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You will only write one
conclusion for your entire essay.
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So our students spend their time
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learning one way of doing that
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because they're only going to do it once,
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and then they can spend their time
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focusing on other more important things.
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How many times are you going
to put examples in your essay?
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For example, for instance, that's it.
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So if your teacher is teaching
you 17 different ways,
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and I've actually seen videos,
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you know, 17 different
ways to write a conclusion,
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why would you spend time learning 17 ways
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to write a conclusion for
your IELTS preparation?
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Are you going to write 17 conclusions?
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And also the thing to learn here
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is you don't need that many.
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You have ways of ending your essay,
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you have ways of giving an example,
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you have however, although,
as a result, therefore,
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you don't need much more than that.
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So that's why these ones came up
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again and again and again and again.
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And the other interesting
thing is the Band 9 students
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were exactly the same
as the Band 7 students
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when it comes to linking words.
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In fact, the Band 9 students
used fewer linking words
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than the Band 7 students.
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So let's see who wins this one.
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Simple, accurate, use existing vocabulary,
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you don't have to learn anything new.
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Again, there's nothing
about topic-specific there,
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so we'll leave that one as a draw.
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Okay, so here's where it starts
to get really interesting.
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Let me explain what these mean.
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So there is some software
that you can use,
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it's actually produced
by Cambridge English,
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and what it allows you
to do is put in text
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and it analyzes the level of
each word within that text.
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So we put in all 100 essays
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and this was what the
software came up with.
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So what is this?
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A1 is the simplest words that you can use.
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B1 and B2 are kind of intermediate words,
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but by most student's
standards, A1, A2, B1, and B2,
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all of these, most students would say
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that these are simple words if
you showed them these words.
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Then C1 and C2, these are
your high-level words.
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So out of those 100 essays,
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about 20% were A1, about 15% were A2,
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25% B1, and about 20% were B2.
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So the vast majority of the
words were A1, A2, B1, B2,
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simple everyday words that students have
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within their existing vocabulary.
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So the Band 7, 8, 9
students that we work with,
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they focused on using
their existing vocabulary
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to clearly communicate their
answer to the examiner.
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Why?
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Because your main job when
you're doing the writing test
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is to clearly communicate
your answer to the examiner.
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They only used complex
vocabulary, high-level vocabulary,
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when they couldn't use
one of the simpler words.
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That's what we teach our students to do.
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So, less than 10%, so I
think came out at about 7%,
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less than 10% of the
words were high-level.
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Think about it as a cake.
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You know, what are the
main ingredients of a cake?
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If you're baking a nice cake,
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most things are simple ingredients,
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sugar, flour, milk, everyday ingredients,
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but then you put a few sprinkles on top.
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So the sprinkles might be
10%, and that makes your cake.
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That's what most of the Band
7, 8, and 9 essays look like.
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The vast majority of words
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were simple, everyday words
that most students can use,
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and then about 7%, 5% were
just the sprinkles on top,
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those complex words.
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But these words were very topic-specific.
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These unknown words,
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so these are spelling mistakes,
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the software can't pick those up,
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or just words that are
not in their database
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for whatever reason.
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So let's see who's the winner here.
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I think yes, definitely simple.
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Accuracy, the simpler the words,
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the more accurate you're going to be.
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The more you push your range
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the less accurate you're going to be.
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Use your existing vocabulary,
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and focus on topic-specific
words, not really complex words.
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Now let's look at some of the
words that our students used.
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I want you just to look
at these and think,
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are these words that you know
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that you could use in your own essays?
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What percentage of these words
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are words that you already know
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and are pretty confident
that you could use them
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in your own essays?
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And also think like, how
high-level are these words?
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So now that you've thought about that,
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these are C1 words,
and these are C2 words.
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I've only used the A, so
I literally have a list
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of all the C1 and C2
words in those 100 essays,
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but I couldn't give you them all.
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It wouldn't fit on the paper.
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But if you look at these words
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like accountable, adolescent, advocate,
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allocate, aspirations, assault,
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none of those words are
particularly complex.
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What a lot of students
think complex words are
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are big words that you
don't know the meaning of
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and that are very rarely used in English.
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That is not the case.
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These are very topic-specific,
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functional, practical words
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that most students are
able to use already.
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So, simple, accurate,
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within your existing
vocabulary, and topic-specific.
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It's a pretty one-sided victory.
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So of course, I'm going to be biased,
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because, you know, I run the VIP course
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and I'm not most teachers or most schools,
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so of course I'm going to be biased.
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But the difference between what
you'll see on the internet,
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I know the internet is full of people
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telling you that they're the best.
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What we do is we post proof
of one-on-one interviews
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with our success stories.
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Go to the link, click on that,
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and it will take you to
all of our success stories.
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That is the most powerful resource
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if you are hoping to
get a Band 7, 8, and 9.
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Don't listen to me,
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listen to real students
who actually did it.
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Go to that page,
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you'll find people from your country,
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you'll find people from your occupation.
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Click on there, watch a few of them,
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and you will see that
they all say these things.
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So, who is correct?
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The data and thousands
of successful students
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that followed this method,
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or your YouTube guru who wants
you to click on their video?
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Hope that you enjoyed this video.
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If you need any help with
your IELTS preparation,
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always feel free to get in touch,
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you'll find my contact
details on the website,
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and I hope you enjoyed the video.
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(groovy music)
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(music stops)
