Plannin g Essays thinking

of vocabul ary
This article looks at how

to plan the vocabulary for your IELTS essays. Tounderstan

d the importance of doing this, readIELTS Essays: the planning

process.Read the question identify key words Many city centres these

days have trafc ow problems, causing congestion

and pollution.One solution is to build fast ring roads on the outskirts of a

city, taking trafc away from the centre. While this is helpful in

some ways, it also causes new problems.To what extent do you agree

or disagree? You should use your own ideas, knowledge

and experience and support your arguments wit h examples

and relevant evidence. These are the content words which relate to

the topic of the question. Normally they willbe nouns, verbs and

adjectives, but they can also include quantiers like manymany

city centrestrafc owcongestio npollutionsol utionbuildrin g

roadsoutskirts trafchelpfulc ausesproblem s Rephrasing the question

One function of the introduction is to identify the question you are

writing about. It isimportant not to repeat the same wording so you need to

rephrase the question. There area variety of techniques available

here:synony mswords in the same familyrelate d words

Dominic Coles IELTS Blog

http://ww w.dcielts.c om

Look for synonyms The most obvious way to avoid r

epeating the wording of the question is to nd synonyms.No te, however,

that synonyms may mean the same thing and that they may be a phraseand not

just one wordmany: se veral, a number ofcity centres: urban areas

(not an exact synonym)con gestion: trafc jamsbuild: constructouts

kirts: outlying areas, the suburbs (not an exact synony m)trafc:

carscauses: leads to, results inproblems: difculties, issues

Words in the same family Sometimes there are no very good synonyms.

Here you can vary the language bychanging the form of the word

from verb to noun for example.city centres: the centra

l parts of the citytrafc ow: the trafc ows (v)pollution:

pollutesolutio n: solve Related words Sometimes it helps to

brainstorm words that are related to words in the question to helpyou

rephrase its meaningtraf c

roads

streetspollutio n

exhaust fumes

air pollution

noise pollution Specialist words It is important to note that

there are frequently some words in the question that are

sospecialised that there may be no other natural way to express the

idea. In this case it isgenerally best not to try and change those

words.ring roads

Dominic Coles

IELTS Blog http://ww w.dcielts.c om

A possible introduction to the essay One very common issue in the

modern world is the increasing amount of trafc in urbanareas

and city centres in particular. This has led to demands for ring roads

to beconstructed to reduce both trafc jams and air pollution.

This essay examines whether thiswould solve the problem or

create more difculties.N ote the combination of:synonyms words from

the same familyrelated wordsuncha nged specialist wordsNote

also the structure of this introduction: general statementexp

lanation of the issue expanding on the general statementide

ntication of the writer s purpose

Dominic Coles

IELTS Blog http://ww w.dcielts.c om