Monday, July 20, 2020

IELTS SPEAKING TEST-1

There are 3 sections in it.

1.General questions - (5-8 ques)

-Need to answer relevantly with atleast 3 sentences.
-You are expected to give information that you already know.

2.Topic Round

-A general speaking topic would be given and you are expected to speak uninterrupted for atleast 2 mins.

3.Logical questions-(5-8)

-You are expected to give logic and reason based answers, as the question will ask for your opinion and views.

The total time of this exam would be approx 15 mins.

Now, the questions and topics in all these sections are based on General topics.

They can be broadly divided into:

1.People Based
2.Place or location Based
3.Things or material Based
4.Idea or concept based.

There can be some miscellaneous topics too.We will see them separately.

Lets now work on developing some vocabulary related to describing people, before we start working on all the sections on this topic.

Knowledge of adjectives to describe people is very important.Else we will limit our description of a person to just'good' and 'bad'. My suggestion is NEVER use these words in IELTS and be more specific of people's qualities.

Try to collect as many adjectives related to describing people.
Few of them are given below.












Can you divide the above qualities into Positive and Negative.

Match Phrases 1-8 with their definitions a-h

1.b 2.g 3.d 4.a 5.c 6.h 7.f 8.e

Write atleast 1 sentence using each Phrase.

Eg:I take after my dad as we are both quite hardworking.Initially we did not talk much but eventually I got on with him.



Now,We can use adverbs like REALLY and SO before a positive adjective.

Eg:She is really outgoing.
   He was so creative.

Secondly,We can use the same adverbs before a negative adjective, but we normally do this only if we do not like the person or are angry with them.

Eg:She is so nosy(interfering or Dakhal dena in Hindi)

Finally,If we say something negative about someone ,eg:She is impatient or He is unreliable, it can sound rude or too direct.We often 'soften' negative comments for this reason.Here are tway of doing this:

-With CAN BE A BIT

Eg:She can be a bit impatient.

-With NOT VERY+a positive adjective

Eg:He is not very reliable.

Read the above 3 structures and write few more examples on your own on each one of them.Remember, if you dont practice these sentence structures, you will never be able to use them in the exam.Our task is to impress the examiner with difficult sentence structures in order to get better bands.

If you use a character adjective to describe someone in the exam, then you should expand on it or explain it.

Eg:She is really outgoing and sociable .She is always going out with friends and colleagues.

He is not very reliable, s, for example, if I email him, he wont respond.

She is terribly blunt, which means she quite often upsets us with the things she says.


Try and describe 5 members of your family.Use some adjective to describe them and then expand or explain each characteristics.use negative points too.

Speaking Task 2- Topic round.

The examiner would give you a topic and also allow you to plan and organise your thoughts for 1 minute and then signal to start your speech.

Then you would have to speak for at least 2 minutes or till the examiner asks you to stop.

The example of a topic is given below:

Remember that the points after "You should say:" is to help you to thnk about the topic.

Never make your speech an answering session of only these questions.Because there will be only 3-4 questions and you will not be able to last for 2 minutes if you just answer these questions.

In the exam, look carefully at the tenses used in the past 2 questions and listen carefully to the examiner to which tenses they use in their ques.Does the question relate to the PAST,PRESENT,FUTURE or something imagines? 

This will help you use the correct tenses when you speak.

Lets focus on the above topic.

As I menioned there will be 4 main categories of topics:
People
Place
Things
Ideas or concepts

The above topic deals with People.

The easiest method to speak on a topic for 2 mins is to divide the topic in few MINI TOPICS so that we can go on speaking on each MINI topic for 15-20 secs and thus completing the speech.

So, as soon as you get the topic, it is important for you to think and make a note on how to divide the topic into atleast 7-8 mini topics.The 1 minute you get for preparation has to be used for this purpose only.

Note:please do not be over-confident that you can speak without preparing these notes, even if you find the topic easy or you have practised earlier.

There will be 2 parts of your speech:

1.Introduction

2.Body

Introduction:

Say not more than 3 sentences here in the introduction:

1.Talk about the topic in a general sense.

Eg(from the given topic): Friends are those people with whom we share our secrets and apart from our family, they are the closest in our life.

2.Talk about the kinds and types of the person mentioned in the topic.

Eg:We make friends in different satges of our lives,like we have childhood friends,school and college friends,colleagues, business freinds,etc.

3.Now mention the one you are going to discuss about in the speech.

Eg:Today I would like to talk about Sandeep ,who is my best friend from childhood.

DO not speak more than 3 sentences in the introduction as the examiner may feel that you have misunderstood the topic.

Also did you notice that we did not say anything specific about the topic in the 1st two sentences and only 3rd sentence did we mention about the one we are going to speak in detail in the BODY of the speech.

Prepare an introduction of 3 sentences for the following topic. 

Describe a teacher who inspired you the most when you were in school.

Now the BODY  of the speech:

This is the part that you need to prepare in the 1 minute that you get before you start speaking.

Think about the WH questions:
When,where,what,why,which,who and How

You will be able to divide the topic into 7-8 mini topics.

Example:

Who- who is your friend? 
Where-Where does he belong to?
Who-Who else is there in his family?
What-What is his qualification?
Where-Where does he live?
How-How does he look like?
Why-Why is he your close friend?
How-How long have you known each other?
When-when do you meet each other?

There are many questions that can be thought of to prepare your speech.

To make it easier I would give you a format.This would be applicable (fit) for all the topics related to People.

1.Background of the person
 -The city he originally belongs to .
 -Family details
 -Qualifications

2.Since when do you know your friend?

3.How does your friend look like?
You can include some external features.
Eg:Height,hair,complexion,weight etc.

4.What are the qualities(internal) that you like in your friend?

Include atleast 2 qualities and describe them separately.Eg:Honestly,hard working,ambitious,organised etc.

If you remember,we did some of these on Friday.

5.What are some of your friend's achievements.They may include:

Academic,extra curricular or a skill. 

6.What is one quality that you dont like in your firend or like it to be improved.

Eg:Carelessness,laziness,unpunctuality,or some habit.

I am sure you must be wondering how can I do all this in 1 minutes.

Let me tell you that this is quite possible with practice and also all you need to do is to write just 1 or 2 words for each point.

So my notes may look like the following:




Now, that we know the MINI topics , we need to execute or perform.

To do this, take one mini topic and try to speak on it for 3-4 sentences and keep on doing till the last MINI TOPIC.

So, if one takes minimum of 5 seconds to say a sentence, then 7(mini topics)*3(Sentences)*5(seconds each)=105 seconds + your intoduction sentences.



So by the end you will observe that you would have spoken for  more than 2 minutes easily.

Calculations are easy but executing is tough if we do not practice.

So lets see how to expand each MiniTopic:

1.Background: Sandeep comes from a small town near Nagpur and he spent his early childhood there.

He completed his graduation in commerce last year and now preparing for competitive exams.He lives in a nuclear family.

His father and mother run their business and his elder sister is doing Engineering from a reputed college.

Observe how I just focused on his background .If you try you can speak much more on it.

Note:Never speak just one or 2 sentences on the MINI TOPIC or else you will end the speech sooner than the examiner wants you to.This would cut your marks.

2.Childhood: I know him since my childhood as we grew up in the same neighbourhood.Later we attended the same school.That meant that we took the same rickshaw to the school.

I hope you are able to follow what is being taught to you here.Please ask where ever you find any difficulty.

Now, as I mentioned earlier this is the format which can be ore or less used for almost all the topics related to PEOPLE.

So everytime you describe some person, you need to describe their physical appearance.

Lets do a small task to learn words related to physical appearance.











After you read the example.Write on atleast 2 people that you know and explain their physical appearance with atleast 50 words.DO try to explore as many words as possible.Do record it and send ,along with the introduction homework that I gave earlier.











































Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Reading- Multiple Choice questions-1

Today we will focus on Multiple Choice questions.

Multiple choice questions test your ability to read for SPECIFIC Information in the passage.

There are different types of multiple Choice quesions.Most common is a question is statement followed by 3 or 4 options is given.

Steps to follow to solve multiple choice questions:

1.Read the questions before you read the passage so you know what you are looking for.
Look for key or important words in the question.

2.Try to locate the words in the passage and determine your answers area, that is, the area where you can find your answers.Otherwise you will be looking for your answers everywhere in the passage.

3.Come back to the question/options and understand them properly.Make sure you understand the meaning of the whole sentences and not just focus on individual words.Otherwise when you find those individual words in the passage, you will believe that you have found the answers.

Remember,the passage will have some distractor words, meaning those words that will make you believe that you have found the answers.Most of the time they try to misguide you.Please be careful here.Thats why understanding whole sentences is important rather than focusing on individual words.

4.Finally, go back to the answer area in the passage and compare each option  and reject the wrong ones and conclude the right answer.

It may happen that you get confused between 2 options as right answers.In such case go back to passage and see which option is more incorrect.The remaining answer is the correct one.

Why I say this is because most of the time you will not get the exact answer in the passage.So you have to arrive at an answer which is least wrong.




































Options:
A Not true:".. but the primary resource,uranium ore, is available and produced domestically." Moreover 32% is imported and that is not "Almost all".

B Not tue:Although energy efficiency is mentioned, it will not be enough to stop the czech Republic's increasing need for energy imports.(Here the word "Energy Efficiency " may give you an impression that you got the answer but you need to careful)

C.True.(This is the answer as we cannot deny this option completely)

D.Not True.The figures for energy efficiency are not given.

There are many energy sources that we have read in the above passage.Which energy sources are being talked about in the following sentences?It is the same source in a,b, and c in each case.



































Coal,Oil and Nuclear







































1. The asnwers to the questions are in order in the text so you may assume that the answer to the 1st ques is somewhere near the beginning.
A. Incorrect.Aspects(parts) of climate change are mentioned, but not climate change.
B.Incorrect.Danger is only mentioned in connection with nuclear power.
C.Correct.The fact there are ques about each form shows there is no easy answer.
D.Incorrect.Gas is mentioned but not as a 'Must'

2.The key to the answer is in the words 'Most' in the ques and 'Many more' in the key sentence in the passage.
A.Correct.
B.Incorrect.Onkly guess work.
C.Incorrect.This is also guess work
D.Incorrect.More will change for financial reasons.

3.You may not know the word'allotment' but you dont need to know it to be able to answer the question.The passage states that there has been a significant increase in the number of people growing their own food and consequently the demand for allotment..has skyrocketed.Again you may not know the word Skyrocketed but the word does suggest something going up very quickly.So the answer is D.


Reading Yes/No/Not Given questions-3

Once again we shall work on True false and Not Given.I hope you understand that this is very important question type in reading.There will be atleast 12-15 ques out of 40 in the exam.

You will get a question  statement that you need to compare it with the given passage and decide if the meaning of the statement agrees with the passage(then the answer is YES),if it is opposite (then it is NO) and if the information is unclear or not mentioned(then it is NOT GIVEN)

There are 4 Steps in Solving this:

1. Read the question carefully and see if there are some key words..

2.Check the passage if you can find some or all the key words and underline or note them.

Key words means important words.They are generally Names,dates,numbers etc.

3.Now again read the question and understand the whole sentence properly. Remember that if you dont understand the question then you may get a wrong answer. So understanding the question is more important.
Please do not just focus on words but on the meaning of the complete question.This is a very important stage so dont go ahead until you understand what is written there.

4.Go back to the passage where you got the key words and read it and compare if what is said in the question, matches with the passage.

IF it matches then the answer is YES.

IF it says the opposite of the question, then it is NO.

And if you are confused between YEs and NO then its NOT Given.
Remember that the question and the passage will use different words , so be prepared to identify synonyms or alternate words.

Read the following questions and answer them by reading the given passage.Follow the above rules.












































Some more important points to consider when solving T/F/NG:
1.Look for anything to show that the statement is not true and pay particular attention to verbs that contradict(oppose) or negate a sentence.(FOr eg:deny,refuse,criticize,etc)

2.When you have scanned the text and located the relevant place in the text, if there is no information, then the answer is "Not Given"
Note:do not share the answers here.note it down in the copy and compare it with the answers I am going to share in some time.

3.The answers follow the order of the text.Meaning the answers in the passage will come one after the other in order.

4.You must only base your answers on the information in the passage and not on what you may know or use your opinion.(For eg, if you know the information is true but it is not given in the passage, then the answer is NOT GIVEN)

5.Always pay attention to comparative adjectives and those words that qualifies a statement or words.(eg:mainly, always,often,never)
Also pay attention to verbs that have different degrees of truth.(Eg:Suggest,claim,believe, know).

6.Just write 'True','False','Not Given'. No further information is required in the answer.

7.Remember there will be at least on of each type of answer.

Now...go ahead and solve the ques.Will share the answers shortly.
I am sure you face some trouble understanding the words in the passage.Let me give you some help for it.





























Match the two halves to form  Marketing/advertising words.

2.Sales revenue
3.product launch
4.exclusive rights
5.good reputation
6.market research
7.brand loyalty
8.Franchise agreement
9.Celebrity endoresement


















Now match these Marketing/advertising words with the above meanings.The meaning of Trade Mark is given.

2.g
3.a
4.b
5.d
6.h
7.e
8.f
9.i

Hope this will help you solve the questions better.

1.F (Para F-The most annoying is telemarketing and spams and not the full page ads)

2.T (Para A-Last sentence)

3.NG

4.T

5.NG

6.T

7.F

8.F

9.F
You need to check and compare the rest on your own.Let me know if you need an explanation on any of the questions.

Now lets try this passage and answer the questions.

















Pay special attention to the underlined words.

1.F (This is all mail looking for business from you)

2.NG  (There is no mention of other countries)

3.NG (The passage does not compare the quantities of both types of mail.

4.T (Thats annoying enough..)

5.T (..inserted inside every newspaper or magazine you pick up..)

6.T (Statistics are hard to come by..some calculate that at least..)

7.F (This is the figure for 2005)

8.T (..there is something in it for businesses..)

Before we move to the next passage, lets work on some related vocabulary.Fill in the blanks.






















1.Ego 2.Affluent 3.Eye-catching 4.Addiction 5.Lifestyle.













Add a preposition to complete the above sentences.
1.to 2.for 3.on 4.in

Read the following passage and answer the questions.





















Answers:1.F 2.T 3.F 4.NG 5.T 6.F 7.NG 8.T




















1.ng 2.t 3.f 4.ng 5.f


Friday, July 10, 2020

Reading - Yes/No/Not Given question type-2

Now lets turn our attention to Reading-yes No NG. Some of you still are unclear about this section.So I am going to explain it again.PLEASE PAY ATTENTION.

I will take a simple example first and we have already done and then we will move to a more complicated passage

















There are 4 Steps in Solving this:

1. Read the question carefully and see if there are some key words.In the 1st Q, the key words are Early Nineties,Central Asia's Steppes and one million.

2.Check the passage if you can find some or all the key words and underline or note them.
You will find all the keywords in the 1st sentence itself.Like 1993, is early nineties.a million and central asia.

Key words means important words.They are generally Names,dates,numbers etc.

3.Now again read the question and understand the whole sentence porperly.Remember that if you dont understand the question then you may get a wrong answer. So understanding the question is more important.
Please do not just focus on words but on the meaning of the complete question.This is a very important stage so dont go ahead until you understand what is written there.

4.Go back to the passage where you got the key words and read it and compare if what is said in the question, matches with the passage.

IF it matches then the answer is YES.

IF it says the opposite of the question, then it is NO.

And if you are confused between YEs and NO then its NOT Given.
Remember that the question and the passage will use different words , so be prepared to identify synonyms or alternate words.

So in the 1st question the answer is YES Because all the information in the question logically matches with the passage.

Now look at the method and explanation for solving the 2nd ques:

Now look for keywords like 97%,Most Dramatic and Mammal.

You see you found it in the 4th line.Now , never feel that you got the answer if you have found the keywords.

Some people do this mistake.as soon as they get the keywords, they write YES without checking the sentences properly.If you decide the answer based on words only then you will have lots of wrong answers.

so never comit this mistake.

Like in this 2nd Q

when I read the Q peoperly ,it says that this decline of 97% is "one of the most dramtic population crashes" (Crashes means Decline- Stock Market Crash)

if you compare it with the Question,it says " MOst Dramatic" and in the passage "One of the most dramatic"

Are both these the Same?

Ofcourse not.

For Example: Mukesh Ambani is one of the richest person in India.Mukesh Ambani is the Rishest person in India.

Are both the sentences same?

NO.

2nd Sentence is saying Specifically that He is on the top of the list of the rich people in India.He is the number 1.

But the 1st sentence is saying that He is in the list of the richest people in India.He could be number 1 or could be 10 or could be 100.In any number.

So did you see that both the sentence do not mean the same thing.

Now dont be in a hurry to think that the answer is NO.

As although both the sentences dont mean the same but the 1st sentence may also mean number 1

Remember I said May(ho sakta Hai)

So its not clear if both the sentence or same or opposite.Since we have a confusion in both.The answer has to Not GIven.

Now remember that Not Given option is very tricky(confusing).You need to ask yourself,What information do I need to make the answer YEs or NO.If you dont get a clear answer then only then the answer would be Not given.

3rd Ques:

Poaching means illegal Killing of Animals.Poachers are those people who kill animals illegally.

1st find the key words like Traditional Medicine,poach, males.

You start getting them in the 5th line.

It says that Traditional medicine uses horns of the males so poachers only kill them.

If you read the sentence in the 5th line, you will notice that this is correct.So the answer is YES.

4th Ques:

Key words:WWF, Rhino, HUnting

you get them in the 7th line.

Now read the ques carefully: It says: because the WWF had encourage people to hunt Saiga(An animal), it has been able to save Rhinos.

Now if we read the 7th line.We get the info that Saiga hunt was encouraged by WWF but there is no information about Saving Rhinos.No where it says that becouse of the encouraging saiga hunt, they could saeve Rhinos.

So this important info is missing.Thats why the answer is NOT GIVEN as we cannot confidently says whether rhinos were saved or not saved.

If somewhere it would have said that Rhinoes were saved then the answer would be Yes.

If somewhere it had said thay Rhinoes where not saved, the answer would be NO.

But both of that info is not given so the asnwer is NOT GIVEN.

HOPE YOU FOLLOWED MY EXPLANATION. IF NOT,PLEASE RE-READ THEM IF STILL YOU DONT GET IT,PLEASE ASK.

Now lets read the following passage:






























Solve the above questions using the 4 stages that we saw above.I will share the asnwers and give explanation in 30 mins.DO SOLVE ON YOUR OWN FIRST.

Ques 1:
a.The key words:reasons,arguments,language

b.I find words argument,debate and language in the 1st para.So para 1 is the location where I would try to locate the answer.-Answer area

c.The meaning of the question:
It says that whatever arguments or debates arise about language are all understandble or justified.

d.Now lets go to the answer area and find if that portion gives a similar meaning.

Line2 says.."Language belongs to everyone, so most people feel they have a right to hold an opinion about it"

If you connect this line with line one , then it mean that it is justified or understandable if people agrue about language as it belongs to everyone.

So the Answer is YES.


Is it Clear?

Ques 2:
a.key words: feel,language education,language usage (Note: you may not get the exact word,but keep looking for alternate words)

b. Answer area-We find such words in the end of para 1 and in para2.

c.Understanding the ques-It says that As compared to how language is used(usage) ,people have a stronger feeling(emotions) about language education.

d.Go to the answer area and check.
Last line pf para 1 says there can be arguments in both.But now we need to check about people's feelings.
Last line of para2 says it is easy to feel hurt when language use(usage) is attacked.

That means people feel more emotion when language usage is attacked and not education.
So this just the opposite of the ques.

So the answer is FALSE.

I am sharing the answers of the rest of the questions.Please compare them with your answers and let me know if you would like me to give you an explanation in any of them.











Lets do another one:





Monday, July 6, 2020

IELTS Reading- Fill in the blanks

Lets fill the blanks in the following sentences by reading the above passage(Marie Curie)
Now, when solving fill in the blanks, follow the following steps:

1.read the question carefully and try and understand the meaning of the whole sentence.

2.Try to guess what kind of word may come in the blank.Usually 3 kinds of words are left blank:
a.Nouns(You can identify them if there is an article before the blank.Like in ques 12.But there could be a noun without an articles too.Like in ques 7,8,9,10,11,13. you see that here in these ques ,all have nouns in the blank.So most of the banks in IELTS reading will be nouns)
b.Verbs (We can identify if there subject and objects at both sides and in the middle there will a verb)
c.Adjectives (We can identify an adjective, if immediately after the blank there is a noun.As adjectives generally come before the nouns)

3.You also need to identify words in the question, which has an alternative words in the para.It is because in most of the question , you will not find the exact word in the para but a synonym)

Take 7th ques:Para 4 line 4 "this was true for.." means the same as "had the same property"

4 When you feel that you have found the answer then always fit the answer in the sentence and see if the whole sentence is meaningful or not.
Never guess an answer,always be doubly sure of what you are doing.

The answers:

7.Thorium
8.Pitchblende
9.Radium
10.Soldiers
11.Illness
12.Neutron
13.Leukemia

Read the following passage and answer the fill in the blank ques:



Answers:

24.Mirror
25.Communication
26.Ownership





Saturday, July 4, 2020

IELTS Writing Task 1- Writing a report on Static Data-4

Lets continue our writing task 1 -static data

We have learnt so far:
1.Use of Comparatives and superlatives
2.Using Linking words to join sentences.
3.Using words and other expressions to describe Numbers.

4.Using negative sentences using the structures- "not as + adjective + as"

We shall learn some more about describing and comparing numbers.

Think about the following question by looking at the given graph.




















Now try to complete the following exercises:














Ans:1.twice 2.three times 3.Half



























The word is "Than" I am sure you got it.






























Read the above 2 structures carefully and try to write atleast 2 sentences using these structures on the above table (Favorite movies by Genre,Survey of 100 women)









































Now, can you write a short paragraph  about the information in the above table(most popular leisure activities) using the language and sentences in the above exercise? You can submit it in this group.

You must have observed from the above table that it is a kind of a survey or Questionnaires.Like the surveys you are asked to fill after you order food or ride in a cab.

Often in Task 1 writing you will be asked to write about the results of a survey or Questionnaire.

You need to draw a graph in your copy by understanding the above information.Please share it in the group once done.

Look at the following graph and study it carefully.
Complete the following sentences:








Please use the following expressions (in blue) to help you complete the above sentences:































Now lets try to write a complete task -1 writing Static data.

Lets consider the following the Graph:

Please use all the following options that we have learnt so far to write:

1.Use of Comparatives and superlatives

2.Using Linking words to join sentences.

3.Using words and other expressions to describe Numbers.

4.Using negative sentences using the structures- "not as + adjective + as"

5.Describing Numbers/Percentages

Now the Format that you should write is :

Paragraph 1 – Introduction

Paragraph 2 – Overview

Paragraph 3 – 1st main data

Paragraph 4 – 2nd main data

Make sure you describe atleast 3- 4 data in each 3rd and 4th para .


IELTS SPEAKING TEST-1

There are 3 sections in it. 1.General questions - (5-8 ques) -Need to answer relevantly with atleast 3 sentences. -You are expected to...