Professional Documents
Culture Documents
WRITE ABOUT THE TOPIC + WRITE ABOUT THE PHOTO - Duolingo Important Notes
WRITE ABOUT THE TOPIC + WRITE ABOUT THE PHOTO - Duolingo Important Notes
5 minutes to complete
AT LEAST 50 WORDS
But write more
Time starts immediately
Topic sentence
Supporting ideas
Concluding sentences
Practice vocabulary
TYPES OF PROMPTS
Recount e.g. Films can tell a lot about culture, WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED
Describe: In general people are living longer today. Discuss some of the implications of this
phenomenon. (not asked to say if it’s good or bad, just implications, outcomes)
Argument: People are never satisfied with what they have, they always want more. Do you
agree or disagree? (give your opinion, talk about general situation then share your opinion)
Grammar:
Vocabulary:
WIDE RANGE OF Vocabulary, synonyms - don’t repeat word or general words
Vocabulary that fits style, formal, academic,
Don’t use contractions or slang
Task relevance
FULLY ANSWERS questions, agree disagree, experience etc
Provide supporting ideas
Topic related vocabulary
FLUENCY, LENGTH
Write more than 50 words, they want us to write more. 70 and 110 words in 5 minutes
Fluency, linking phrases to connect ideas and correct spelling and punctuations.
RECOUNT:
If the question asks about your own experiences or what have you done, you know it’s a
recount.
You are recounting or remembering your own experiences.
DESCRIBE:
In general people are living longer today, discuss some of the implications of this
phenomenon.
Key word for describe: DISCUSS or EXPLAIN
Discuss the situation, discuss both sides, maybe pro and cons, you don’t need to
have a position or opinion on these questions.
Don’t need to say whether you agree or disagree, and you don’t need to argue. You
just need to discuss, pro and cons.
Opinion part is not needed for describing, you can in the concluding sentence if you want.
ARGUMENT:
People are never satisfied with what they have. DO you agree or not?
Asking you to share your opinion or making an argument to whether you agree or not.
Discuss situations
Should have a clear position or opinion
You should try to argue why your position or opinion is correct
Discuss in general and then argument. This is the difference between describe and
the argument questions, with the argument questions you are supposed to tell your
opinion.
RECOUNT
Write your own experience
Write two things you have learned with examples, keep simple ideas
DESCRIBE:
Introduce the situation/topic
Describe two implications
On both sides, negative and positive
Provide examples
ARGUMENT:
Introduce the situation/topic
Then pick a position/opinion: do you agree or disagree, this should be very clear
And ARGUE WHY YOUR POSITION IS CORRECT
And provide examples
Supporting ideas
They explain and develop the topic sentence
They develop the topic sentence by explaining and discussing the ideas more fully.
They can explain, describe, give reasons, give facts, or give examples.
Concluding sentence
Topic sentence
Topic of the paragraph plus central point. (and in the argument you state your opinion in the
topic sentence)
Make it specific
E.g.
What are the benefits of exercise?
Wrong: exercise has benefits
Right: exercising has many health benefits for people of all ages.
Very specific,good clear central point.
Don’t include too much information otherwise you run out of ideas
Don’t list all your ideas
Keep topic sentences short.
Present Perfect: to talk about changes that happened in the past but still affect the present
I have learned so many things about India from Bollywood films.
(not specific date)
Example 1
I believe that wearing uniforms at school has many benefits for different reasons.
In my view, wearing uniforms at school has many benefits for different reasons.
School uniforms should be mandatory for all high school students for a number of
important reasons.
There are many benefits of making school uniforms mandatory for students.
In general, people are living longer today. Discuss some of the implications of this
phenomenon.
There are both benefits and negative sides to the fact that people are living longer
nowadays.
Life expectancy is increasing all around the world, and this has both positive and
negative implications.
There are several positive and negatives implications of people living longer.
Films can tell us a lot about the country where they were made. What have you learned
about another country from watching its movies?
Watching movies is a very useful way to learn about customs in different countries. (mine.
You have to state your own opinion) + my own opinion
There are many things that I have learned from watching Korean films.
Films can teach us about another country. And I have learned a lot about Korea from
watching its films.
SUPPORTING IDEAS
Giving reasons
Giving facts
Giving examples
Describing
Remember: your supporting idea should be directly related to your topic sentence.
You should not include any other informations that is not directly related to the topic
sentence.
Question: Fast food should be banned from schools. Do you agree or disagree?
Topic sentence: I agree that children should be banned from eating fast food at school for
several important reasons.
Supporting ideas:
Try to think about 2 ideas:
Fast food is unhealthy + example
Fast food is expensive + example
(supporting idea 1)First, children should not be allowed to eat fast food because it is
detrimental to their health.
(Then you provide examples) For instance, fast food burgers are packed with fat, sugar, salt,
and preservatives which makes them extremely unhealthy especially for children.
(supporting idea 2) In addition, schools should stop serving fast food because it is very
expensive. (example) It is a well-known fact that fresh food from a supermarket is
significantly cheaper.
Topic sentence
Supporting idea 1 + example
Supporting idea 2 + example
Ideas from the same viewpoint and ideas from positive view points, and example and facts .
FIRST/ FIRSTLY. FIRST OF ALL/ FIRST AND FOREMOST (first and most important)
- First and foremost, eating junk food causes many illnesses.
Another point to consider is the long term impacts junk food has on children’s physical and
mental health.
FURTHERMORE
MOREOVER
However,
On the other hand
that being said
Conversely
In spite of/ despite
Alternatively
although
However many children get enjoyment from eating junk food now and again.
On the other hand, students would likely complain if schools banned junk food completely.
That being said, junk food is not that bad as long as students don’t eat it for every meal.
Alternatively, schools could simply limit the amount of junk food they provide to the
students.
Although junk food is bad it would be complicated to ban it completely from schools.
Examples
For example
For instance
Such as
To illustrate this point
For facts:
For example/for instance: fast food burgers are packed with fat, sugar, salt, and
preservatives.
To illustrate this point, students who eat junk food daily are more likely to suffer from
long-term health problems.
It is a well-known fact that eating junk food on a consistent basis can lead to obesity.
It has been proven that/many studies have shown that junk food can not only affect physical
health but their mental health.
It concludes the paragraph and inform people that you are finished.
Concluding and intro topic are similar.
Concluding sentence restates the main ideas in topic sentence/
So you have to take your topic sentence and rewrite it in another way.
Question: Fast food should be banned from schools. Do you agree or disagree?
Topic sentence: I agree that children should be banned from eating fast food at school for
several important reasons.
Supporting ideas: First, children should not be allowed to eat fast food because it is
detrimental to their health.
(Then you provide examples) For instance, fast food burgers are packed with fat, sugar, salt,
and preservatives which makes them extremely unhealthy especially for children.
In addition, schools should stop serving fast food because it is very expensive. (example) It
is a well-known fact that fresh food from a supermarket is significantly cheaper.
Concluding sentence: In conclusion, based on the reasons discussed, I believe that fast food
should be banned from school menus.
Or
To sum up, for these reasons it is clear that fast food should be banned from schools.
Linking phrases:
In conclusion,
To conclude,
To sum up,
In sum,
Overall,
On the whole,
All things considered,
Given these points,
All in all,
To sum up, my experience watching Korean movies has taught me a lot about the
culture and language.
All things considered, I believe that fast food should be banned at school for all the reasons
described above.
To conclude, for the reason presented above, it is vital that schools ban fast food.
All in all, There are benefits and negatives to the increase of life expectancy as presented in
the paragraph.
All things considered, there are a number of positive and negative implications of
people living longer.
COMPOUND SENTENCES
Complexity in grammar means: are you able to write more complex sentences, sentences
which have more than one idea.
Combine 2 ideas together using compound sentences
Linking two simples sentences and you have compound sentences, just connecting ideas
SIMPLE SENTENCES
E.g.
Many children play computer games
Other children prefer to play sports
(subject plus verb)
Many children play computer games, /BUT other children prefer to play sports.
F A N B O Y S : COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS
FOR
AND
NOR
BUT
OR
YET
SO
E.g.
She wore a blue dress but nothing else.
She wore a blue dress, but she didn’t wear anything else.
2)When you are combining two or more nouns(or adjectives), you don’t need a comma.
e/g/
I think that taxes are both good AND BAD.
After high school you can get a job OR go to university.
3) When the subject is the same, you don’t need to repeat it.
If you use the same subject for each clause, then you don’t need to repeat it, and since you
are not repeating the subject you don;t use the comma.
MANY STUDENTS LIKE PLAYING SPORT. OTHER STUDENTS prefer making art.
Which one show contrast? Although, Even though, Though, whereas, while
Many students like playing sports. Other students prefer making art.
Although many students like playing sports, other students prefer making art.
If you start a sentence using subordinating conjunctions, then you need to use a comma to
link the two independent clauses.
Many students like playing sports whereas other students prefer making art.
(NO COMMA)
When you use a subordinating conjunction in the middle of the sentence, you don’t need to
use a comma.
Online games have advanced rapidly because/as/since many children find these games
irresistible.
If you use subordinating conjunction a start of the sentence you need to use a comma.
Because/as/since many children find these games irresistible, online games gave advanced
rapidly.
We use the subordinating conjunctions to link independent clauses, but we use them to
show the relationship between the two sentences too. (contrast and reason/ time and
condition)
TIME
ONCE AFTER UNTIL AS SINCE WHILE
CONTRAST
ALTHOUGH EVEN THOUGH WHILE EVEN IF RATHER THAN THOUGH WHEREAS
REASON
BECAUSE SINCE AS SO THAT IN ORDER TO
CONDITIONAL
IF
EVEN IF
PROVIDED THAT
UNLESS PROVIDED THAT
School is not all about studying since there are a lot of clubs and fun activities on campus.
Even though cars cause a lot of pollution, they are essential to our lives.
Most children will participate in sports provided that they are encouraged.
Because video games are highly addictive, parent need to monitor how much time their kids
play them
IF
Express your own opinion (general topic. What is your actual opinion on the topic)
5 minutes to write
SPELLING AMERICAN AND BRITISH - accepted for the photo task. You need
American spelling for the C-test.
SCORING CRITERIA
TASK RELEVANCE
(are you describing the picture well)
LENGTH
How much you can write in a short amount of time
2 or 3 sentences
FLUENCY
Cohesion, Are the ideas linked well
Spelling and Punctuation
TIPS
- Since the timer starts right away: Quickly identify the main subject(s) in the
photo
In the first sentence think that you are describing the photo to someone that is not
seeing it. What does this person need to know to understand this picture in one
sentence.
WITH PEOPLE
E.g.
First sentence about main subject:
This is a picture of a man giving a presentation to a group of people.
or
This is an image of a young man standing and talking to people.
NO PEOPLE
(main subject)
This is a photo of a blue camper van that is parked by a beautiful lake.
(more details)
The lake is in front of the camper van and there are hills in the background.
(speculate)
As the weather looks perfect, there must be a lot of people swimming in the lake.
The driver must have stopped to enjoy the amazing view of the lake.
There is/are
This is a photo of
Adding information
With
PREPOSITIONS
Common mistakes:
There is a man and a woman (first subject is a singular noun and so the verb must
also take the singular form (is))
When you talk about two subjects but you use the singular form then in this structure
we must also use the singular verb is.
If the first subject is singular (there is a teacher) and the second subject (and some
students) is plural, we still use the singular There is.
There is a teacher and some students.
A man and a woman are sitting on the bench. (correct) There are two subjects and if
the subjects come first of the verb, you must use the plural.
The three horses are running through the fields and not having saddles
The woman is serving food to the guests at the party, and the men are talking to
each other.
NO COMMA and NOT REPEATING SUBJECT, because there is just one subject.
The woman is wearing a pink top and (she is) carrying two plates of food.
Describe how people are dressed if you really don’t know the action verb
LOCATION OF THINGS
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
SPECULATING
MAKING GUESSES
Modal verbs
MUST
MAY
MIGHT
COULD NOT + have + past participle
It seems that they must have had a fight about something important
It appears he might have stopped to look at the beautiful scenery in front of him
He took -
He has taken
He had taken
He might have taken
He might take
(If I think he did something in the past, I use this form)
MUST
MAY
MIGHT
COULD NOT / COULD
+ HAVE (NOT had. )
He might not have completed something
She must have gone there
He may not have done something
She may have walked there
He might have gone
The boats might have been anchored to the beach to avoid the wind carrying them
away
The young girl could be choosing a pineapple for a party which might be happening
later during the day.
In this image there is a man holding a yellow pen while writing on a piece of paper.
On the right side of the photo there is a computer.
He might be preparing for a presentation at work.
ADJECTIVES