Video summary
A strong conclusion in an IELTS Task 2 essay serves two primary functions: it clearly restates your position and summarizes your main arguments. The video explains that many students neglect this section not due to a lack of knowledge, but because they underestimate its importance. To write an effective conclusion, one should follow a simple three-part structure starting with a cohesive device like "in conclusion" or "to conclude." Following this linking word, the writer must paraphrase their original position from the introduction using different vocabulary, ensuring consistency throughout the essay. Finally, the main ideas presented in the body paragraphs should be briefly summarized by paraphrasing the introduction's outline of topics, creating a mirror image between the beginning and end of the response.
It is crucial to understand that repeating your ideas does not lower your score; rather, it is required by the official marking criteria which demands a clear position throughout the entire response. A common mistake students make is contradicting their own stance or using vague language in the conclusion that was not present in the rest of the essay. For instance, if an introduction argues that technology is beneficial, the conclusion should reinforce this view rather than introducing new doubts or changing one's mind. Additionally, writers must avoid generic phrases like "technology is developing fast" and instead use specific examples mentioned earlier, such as artificial intelligence, to maintain coherence and precision.
Time management is another significant challenge when writing conclusions, but the video argues that effective proofreading comes from long-term practice rather than last-minute tips. Students should aim to secure at least five minutes at the end of their exam to review their work, checking for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and structural errors sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, and then as a whole essay. The best way to ensure this time is available is to improve writing speed and accuracy over weeks and months before the test date through consistent practice. By identifying personal error patterns early on, such as frequent mistakes with articles or punctuation, students can transform these weaknesses into strengths, ensuring that their final submission is free of critical errors that could lower their band score.
Read the full video transcript
So, we're going to talk about what a
conclusion is, the three essential
elements of a conclusion, how to write
it very, very quickly because you'll be
under a lot of pressure, and then we'll
look at proofreading and a final
checklist to make sure that you check
everything at the end to guarantee that
you get a good score. So, here is the
question. Pause the video if you need to
remind yourself of the question. And
it's a double question, and we're
looking at two separate questions here.
So what is a conclusion? Well, number
one, it states your position. What do
you think about the question? What is
your answer to the question? And it also
summarizes your main ideas. What are the
key points that you have made throughout
your essay? So a conclusion is just your
position and a summary of your ideas. So
a lot of students don't write a good
conclusion, not because they don't know
how to write a good conclusion, but they
don't really care about it or they don't
really see the importance of it. And I
want to tell you a little story about
when I was a kid at school. We had a
science teacher, Mr. Rafferty, and he
used to give us very long like
scientific journal articles, thousands
of words long. And we always had a
problem with this because we were kids.
We didn't want to read very, very long
scientific journals. And he taught us
this little trick, which was you don't
have to read all of it. All you have to
do is read the introduction and read the
conclusion. And if you just read the
introduction and the conclusion, you
understand everything that was discussed
in that article. So it's kind of a a
shortcut. So this shows the importance
of the actual conclusion. A great
introduction and a great conclusion. You
should be able to cut that out and show
it to the examiner only and they should
understand what you think about the
question. So like most things we do at
IELTS Advantage, we've broken the
conclusions down into three parts. The
first part is your cohesive device,
sometimes known as a linking word. Then
you state your position. Then you
summarize your main ideas. If you have
those three elements and you do those
properly in your conclusion, you have a
good conclusion. So the first element is
your cohesive device, sometimes known as
a linking word. Common ones are in
conclusion or to conclude. That's all.
We don't teach any more than that
because think about the number of
conclusions that you're writing. How
many conclusions are you writing? You're
writing one conclusion. Just memorize
one of these and put it at the beginning
of your conclusion and you don't have to
worry about that anymore. Then after
that, so in conclusion or to conclude,
you state your position. So we already
stated this in the introduction. So all
you have to do is just look at your
introduction and make sure that you
repeat that, paraphrase that, use
different words, you know, vary your
vocabulary, but it should be consistent.
Now, I want to talk about something that
we get a lot. So when we teach this, a
lot of students will say, well, if I
repeat things, I'm going to get a lower
score. So this comes down to a
misinterpretation, a misunderstanding of
what the official marking criteria says
about this. And it's actually very
clear. It says presents a clear position
throughout the response. So it is
stating very very clearly that your
position what you think about the
question should be clear. Not just clear
in one part of the essay but throughout
your response. So if you're ever
confused about anything, don't believe
me. Just believe what it says in the
official marking criteria. And then
element three, we're going to summarize
our main ideas. And how we do this again
is we just use our introduction. So, all
we have to do is just read our intro,
paraphrase it, and put it into our
conclusion. Don't worry again about
repeating ideas. We've already covered
that. But try and vary your vocabulary
as much as you can. But before I show
you what to do, again, I want to show
you what not to do. So, I shared this
technique with a student, and like most
students, they understood the theory,
but when they tried to put it into
practice, they made a few mistakes, and
they needed some feedback. So let me
show you what they did and then we will
show you how we apply the feedback so
you can learn from this too. So they
said in conclusion robots are very
useful in today's world. They help
people in many ways. Technology is
developing fast. There are many
advantages and disadvantages. So we can
say it is a positive and negative
development. So what is wrong here?
Pause. Have a think about it. Is this
actually doing what we said that you
should do?
So we actually gave this student the
introduction that we've been working on.
So if we look at it in the introduction,
it says that it's a good thing, but then
they start to say that it's positive and
negative. So they're contradicting what
is in the actual introduction. The
introduction and the conclusion should
be mirror images of one another. You
shouldn't say things like, I think it's
a good thing in the introduction and
then you get to the conclusion, you're
like, actually, it's quite bad. you you
shouldn't change your mind halfway
through because it's confusing for the
reader. It's also very vague. So things
like it helps people in many ways. Try
and avoid very vague language. You
weren't vague in your introduction. You
weren't vague in your main body
paragraphs. Hopefully you're stating
clear main ideas. You should state those
again in your conclusion. Again, they're
quite vague here. So like technology is
developing very fast. Why not mention
AI? Why not mention artificial
intelligence? When I asked the student
this, they were say, "Oh, my old teacher
told me that I can't repeat any words.
So, I didn't want to do that. So, I just
wanted to, you know, do something um and
finish it quickly. That causes a
problem." So, once we gave them that
feedback, they were able to produce
this. In conclusion, robots are taking
over an ever growing range of tasks both
at home and in the workplace. So,
they're giving a little bit of context
there. The main driver behind this shift
is the rapid progress being made in
artificial intelligence. So they're just
stating the same idea and in my view
this is an overwhelmingly positive trend
stating their position again since it
meaningfully eases the workload that
ordinary people have to shoulder in
their day-to-day lives. So just stating
the same thing again. So if we break
down the conclusion even more for you in
orange here we have our cohesive device.
In conclusion, in blue here we have the
position and then in green we have idea
number one and idea number two. We've
included a free workbook for this
lesson. So if you want go down download
that and come back to this lesson. I
have set you little tasks throughout the
lesson so you can print it off if you
like or you know have it on a separate
device or in a separate window. But if
you want to really learn from this
lesson, try and do the tasks within the
workbook. And I'll tell you when those
tasks come up. Task number 12 is to
write your own conclusion. So if you
want, go and do that. But your essay is
not finished yet. One of the biggest
problems that we see is students write
quite a good introduction, quite a good
main body paragraph section, then they
finish their conclusion, but there's
lots of little errors. And these little
errors add up. And this this can mean
the difference between getting a 6.5 and
a seven. So we're going to talk about
how to proofread and we're also then
going to talk about how to find the time
to proofread because there's no point in
teaching you this if you can't get it
all done within the time limit. So how
we teach proofreading is we get you to
proofread three times. So the first time
you're going to do this is at the end of
every sentence. So at the end of every
sentence, go back, read that sentence.
Is it correct? Any grammar mistakes, any
vocabulary mistakes, spelling mistakes,
things like that in there? If there are,
correct it. Then at the end of every
paragraph, you're going to do the same
thing. Does it make sense? For example,
if it's your main body paragraph, have
you got a clear topic sentence? Have you
got a clear example explanation?
Again, are you spotting any grammar
mistakes, any vocabulary errors? Fix
them. Then at the end of the whole
essay, you're going to look at the whole
thing. So you're going to look at, did I
structure it properly? Again, any of
those small errors in there. So every
sentence gets checked three times. So
here are some things that you could
check. I put them in your workbook as
well. I'll not go through them, not list
them, cuz everybody's different. But the
big thing you're probably worried about
is time management. So a lot of you
genuinely do not have enough time to do
this. So what we want to do is get you
into a position where you have at least
five minutes and it's a comfortable 5
minutes at the end to proofread and
check everything. You might think that
that's unbelievable and you won't be
able to get that done but you know I've
helped thousands of students get there.
So the way that we teach time management
is we don't actually teach time
management. So this is Usain Bolt. I
think he's still the fastest man in the
world. I'm sure people in the comments
will tell me if if his record has been
broken. But before the race, did Usain
Bolt look up time management tips? So
before the Olympic final, was he
googling how to use time management
techniques to win the gold medal? No.
Why is he ahead of the other guys? He's
ahead of the other guys cuz he's better
at running. Our students, when they
first start working with us on the VIP
course, they're terrible at time
management. They can't actually get
there at all, but by the end of it, they
are able to have at least 5 minutes at
the end to check everything. But we
don't teach time management. So, how do
they do it? We teach them how to become
better at writing. Just like Usain Bolt
isn't looking at time management tips.
He worked on becoming the fastest runner
in the world. You need to work on how to
become the best writer that you can be.
So proofreading and time management
actually starts weeks and months before
you ever book your test. So if you're
doing this by yourself, after every
practice essay, you should be looking
through that. And because you have time
and you have other resources, you can
pick out the errors and you should start
to notice problems. You should start to
notice patterns. So, you might notice
that every time you're supposed to use
punctuation, you don't do it properly or
articles are a problem or spelling is a
problem or structure is a problem or
your ideas don't make sense. If you
start to notice that, you notice that
those are common problems, then weeks,
months in advance, you can fix those
problems. So, you don't even have to
check on exam day because you've turned
those weaknesses into strengths. That is
the best proofreading is no
proofreading. But if you need help with
that, get expert feedback. Not some
teacher that has been teaching IELTS for
2 weeks or somebody that got a high
score on the IELTS test and is suddenly
an IELTS expert. Get someone who has
actually been an examiner, who knows
what they're doing, and will tell you
not just the mistakes that you're
making, but the critical errors that are
leading to a lower score. Again, they'll
be able to point out your main
weaknesses weeks and months in advance.
you can turn those weaknesses into
strengths and then you don't have those
on test day. So for our most successful
students, what they say when we
interview them is, "Yeah, I had at least
5 minutes at the end and I did
proofread, but it was just little typos,
small little mistakes. So they didn't
have much pressure, but they were able
to pick out those little mistakes and
correct them at the end." And for many
of them, that made the difference
between 7.5 8.5.
That's how to write a conclusion.