Introduction
Do you want to enhance your writing skills for your upcoming IELTS (International English Language Testing System) test? If yes, then this post is going to be a favorable source of information for you. Writing is quite a valuable skill, and that’s why this skill is tested by the IELTS administration.
The IELTS test is an extensive exam that tests various aspects. By the end of it, the examiners know whether you have a strong grasp of the English language or not. But for many exam takers, the writing section of the test is a great challenge.
In this article, we are going to inform you about how to prepare for this part of the exam. And after that, we will introduce you to some great tools for polishing your skills even further.
How to Prepare for the IELTS Writing Test?
The writing section of the IELTS test comprises 2 tasks. In the first task, you have to explain a visual, and in the second task, you have to provide an argument on a certain topic. In both cases, basic things like grammar, sentence structure, word choice, etc., are evaluated.
These things are only achievable via practice. You can take a hundred lessons on writing, but unless you practically implement those lessons, you will have learned nothing. That’s why the only method of preparing for your IELTS test is by writing as many practice write-ups as you can.
IELTS Writing Preparation Resources
There is tons of practice material available both online and offline for preparing your IELTS writing section. For online sources, the official IELTS website and the British Council website can be used to get useful information.
If you want to prepare your test using a book, then these are some good choices for you:
- Barron’s IELTS Superpack
- Official Cambridge Guide to IELTS
Polish Your Writing Skills with these Proofreading Tools
As we explained before, practice is what impacts the level of your preparation the most. But to make this practice easier for you, we have come up with a great remedy. Online proofreading or content-analyzing tools can check your practice write-ups for mistakes.
As a result, you won’t have to review your writing again and again, to find out what you did wrong. This helps in practicing more in less time. Here is a list of tools with such characteristics.
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Grammar Check
One of the most repeated mistakes that practice writing has in common are grammar errors. These mistakes happen quite often. However, sometimes they are minor mistakes. But it doesn’t matter if your mistake is minor or not. In IELTS evaluation, even the slightest flaws can cost you much.
So, to perfect your grammar with practice, you should take assistant of Grammar Check as a proofreading tool. This tool can scan your practice write-ups and tell you exactly what mistakes you made.
Moreover, mistake detection is not the only feature of this tool. Corrections are also suggested by this excellent grammar-checking tool. Here is an example of how this detection and suggestion look in the tool:
As it is evident from the screenshot, all the grammatical flaws are effectively pointed out. If we hover our mouse over these flaws, suitable suggestions show up. These suggestions are the most helpful feature of this tool in terms of IELTS preparation. Evaluate your mistakes, learn from them, and avoid them in the future.
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Paraphrase Online
Quillbot is a paraphrasing tool that uses intelligent algorithms. This tool can be used to refine the clarity of sentences in your practice write-ups. Just like grammar, readability is also a crucial factor that is examined in the IELTS writing test.
That’s why, to utilise this tool effectively, you will have to pay attention to the paraphrased sentences. You can get insightful information on how to improve the readability and overall structure of your sentences. Here is an example of the tool’s working:
The paraphrased text is much easier to read as compared to the original one. Word insertion and word choice are also great things to take away from this paraphrased text. This tool usually aims to use the most fitting word in a sentence.
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Prepostseo
Prepostseo is a wide-ranged toolset with more than one content optimisation tool. It offers both a grammar checker and a paraphrasing tool under one platform. On top of that, you can also check the originality of your work using this tool’s plagiarism checker.
This plagiarism checker can be useful for IELTS as well. If you find out that your practice content accidentally has unoriginal sentences, you can avoid using those particular sentences in your test.
This is because IELTS does not tolerate plagiarism, even if it’s unintentional. The image below shows a plagiarism report of a written piece of content.
After checking the plagiarism, you can make your writing go through other tools of this platform as well. In this way, you can optimize and learn from your content mistakes and eventually perfect it.
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Hemingway
Hemingway App is another readability-related online tool. Unlike Paraphrase, this tool actually gives your content a readability score. It doesn’t rewrite your sentences. It just tells you hard they are to read.
It categorizes your sentences as difficult to read or very difficult to read. The tool suggests that you make changes to these sentences to make them clearer. The overall write-up also gets a grade, such as grade 6, grade 7, and so on.
A lower grade means your content is clearly understandable. Higher grades, however, mean that only professionals will be able to comprehend what you have written. It can also mean that no one can understand your writing based on how high of a score you get.
This is an example of the readability evaluation of this tool:
In this example, purple and orange-colored sentences should be rewritten at all costs. If you regularly use this tool to fix your sentences, you will gradually be able to write easier sentences without having to think much about them.
Conclusion
IELTS writing test preparation can be an intensive and demanding task. But to make it a little bit easier for you, we have explained some tools that can be helpful. These tools save time and also make your learning process more impactful. So, if you want to adapt to the best possible practices for your preparation, then these tools are worth a try.