WRITING TASK • Sharp / sharply

• Considerable / considerably
Description of graphs • Significant / significantly

VERBS/EXPRESSION TIME EXPRESSIONS

• For the period …

• To rise • Since 1970 …
• To increase • For the years …
• To go up • Over the five years period …
• To double • Between 1980 and 1990 …
• To reach a peak / dip • In 1987 …
• To drop • By the beginning of …
• By the end of …

• To decrease
• To decline
• To fall
• To reach the lowest point / to hit the
lowest point
• To reach a decline

• To hold / remain steady

• Remain the same
• To be constant

• To reach a plateau
• To level off

• To fluctuate
• A fluctuation

ADJECTIVES/ADVERBS

• Gradual / gradually
• Steady / steadily
• Slight /slightly
• Gentle / gently

• Dramatic / dramatically WRITING TASK

• Steep / steeply
Making a short essay – Linking  Secondly, …
words & useful language  Next, …
INTRODUCTION
 One / an example /
• First of all, I would like to say that … Illustration of this is …

 A clear example of this

• The first thing to consider when
is, …
discussing about x is that …

• There’s no doubt that …

• One of the main arguments put

forward for x is that …

• I strongly agree / disagree with the

statement that …
BODY (follow)
o Expressions for giving
• Although some people say that, … ,
I believe that … reasons and examples from
knowledge or experience
BODY (follow):

o General expressions:

 It can generally  I can illustrate this with

observed that … an example from my
 However … own experience such
 In addiction to … as …
 In support of …
 In fact …  A clear demonstration
 It has been observed of the fact arise from …
that …

o Expressions for giving o Expressing point of views,

reasons and examples from opinions:
knowledge or experience:
 I (firmly) believe that …
 I’m convinced that …
 I believe in …
 Firstly, …  It seems to me that …
 I tend to think that …
 Firstly I want to  It is generally accepted
consider that, … that
 I’m strongly inclined to
 The most important believe that …
point is
o Rejecting or refusing an
 The next most argument:
important point is …
  I’m unconvinced that …
 I don’t believe that … [Final summary]
 It is hard to accept that
… But, you must often use the passive
 There’s little evidence form:
to support the fact that
… [positive sentence] To be + Past
 It is unjustifiable to say participle
that
 [argument]. But I’m [negative sentence] To be + not + Past
strongly inclined to participle.
suspect that …
________________________________
o Defining / explain better:
EXAMPLES OF USE OF THE LINKING
 By this I mean … WORDS:
 By … I mean …
 In other words … 1 ) I don’t believe that Internet is a
 On the other hand … useful source for children. There’s too
much uncensored material.
 This is to say that …
 To be more precise … 2) I don’t believe that running is good
 Here I’m (not) referring for you. Your body will get many
to … physical injuries

3) On the past working life of the people

was focused around a single career
CONCLUSION path. By this I mean that, for example,
after the graduation the people got a
• To sum up … job in their sector and…
• Overall …
• In the final analysis … 4) Nowadays the life of all mothers
• Finally … tends to be very busy by the work, and
• In conclusion … their child need of day care assistance,
• To conclude … although a good stuff should be the
• Ultimately … special attentions that a mother only
• While … can give.
Or: … assistance. Certainly, is it true
• Although …
that a good stuff … .
• Despite the fact that …
• Admittedly 5) A benefit of having too much cars in
• Certainly cities is a fast building of more road,
• I would conclude by saying that … despite of an increase in car users.
Or: … more road, despite the fact that
o Describing a process: an increase in car users makes the
cities very busy.
When you describe a process from a
pictorial form like diagram, tables and DON’T FORGET WHEN YOU
so on, you must keep the same WRITE AN ESSAY
structure for the essay:

[Intro]
DON’T GO OUT OF TOPIC
!
Important is :
[Body]
 • Splayed
- reading carefully the topic • Lexicon
- organize ideas • Siege
- make sure of having an intro, • Warfare
body and conclusion. All in • Digging
250 words. • Saps
- avoid repetitions • Dug
• Pummeling
DON’T FORGET WHEN YOU
WRITE, IN GENERAL

MAKE SURE OF HAVING:

LISTENING TASK
[INTRO]1*

[BODY]
Basic concept
[FINAL SUMMARY]2*
In listening you must be very careful
*for a graph: in getting these things:
1*
: you must write what the graph is
showing about;
2*
: you must summarizing the • Who’s speaking?
information and make comparisons if • Where’s the conversation?
relevant. • What’s the topic?
________________________________________ • Why are they speaking?

VOCABULARY: IMPORTANT: during a conversation

you must get the speaking
• Wickedness: situation (i.e: study moment,
• Astride during a lesson, walking on a road),
• To sink who are the speakers (i.e:
• Stake students, strangers, principal’s
• Nest school), the topic of the
• Whom conversation (i.e: the main reason
• Crackle for speaking)and the reason for
• Scorched deck getting a conversation, for example
• To slip (slipped) asking for the hours of the next
• Tremble lecture, and this is you can note into
• Dreadful a conversation by the tone of the
• Fractious voice (voice calm, voice of a people
• Shards in a hurry), something emotive
• Unceasingly related.
• Jabbed
• Bewailed Getting specific information
• Siege
• To stifle In a conversation, when we’re
• Hallmark
looking for some particular
• Likelihood
information, we must getting
• Redoubts
obviously:
• Cusp
• The context
• Slanted
• Who’re the speakers
• The topic
But not only, in fact we must listen
carefully for:
• Names
• Nouns
• Places
• Numbers (i.e.: phone numbers,
driving licence, home address)
• Dates
• Hours (from … to …) am, pm.
TIPS
for solving the specific task, we
must:
• Look at the table and seeing if
there’re pics or logos, these are
useful for getting the context;
• Look for the type of infos, like
numbers and so on.
Identifying detail
During a conversation there’re
some other specific information
like details.
Listening describing words we
can get specific details about a
topic or an object.
So, some describing words are
related to:
o Size
o Color
o Age
o Shape
o Type of material
o Number of x (x= people,
cars…)
Some words like: stripes, spots,
handle, curved, straight, point,
pointed are useful for describing
or identifying an object.
TIPS
for solving the task we must:
• Underline the infos
• Look at the pics
• Make an association infos - pics
Identifying main ideas
This is the “core” of a
conversation. In fact for getting
the main ideas of a conversation,
we must “enter” ideally into the
conversation and replacing one
of the people speaking: you are
one of the listeners!
So, as previous seen, very
important:
• Getting the context or situation
• You are one of the listeners!
• Selecting the interested
information
The intonation of a speech
During a conversation pay attention
to the intonation of speech.
Different intonation = different
meaning of a speech.
Signpost words
In written task you’ve the linking
words, here you’ve the signpost
words. Their function is to introduce
ideas, to make comparisons and so
on.
Here we go:
- Leading towards a comparison
- Leading towards a contrast or
opposite
- Introducing an example of what
was said earlier
- Suggesting cause and effect or
result
- Providing additional information
- Setting out the stage of a talk.
Summarizing, into a conversation
we’ve to consider:
- CONTEXT
- WHO ARE THE SPEAKERS
- INTONATION AND VOICE
STRESS
- SIGNPOST WORDS.
Reading task
Every time that you must deal with
a reading situation don’t forget the
5 main basic questions to ask
yourself:
THE 5 QUESTIONS
- What type of text is it?
(scientific, novel, newspaper
article…)
- Who was it written for?
(everyone, special public …)
- What the subject?
- Why was the text written?
(divulgation)
- Why would somebody read the
text? (the reason for reading it)
These are important questions to
ask yourself at every article,
here start a sort of text
interaction!
Getting information from
the text
As in listening task you must be able
to get some specific information by
recognizing the so called key
words, here is the same, by key
sentences.
o Match the headings
 Look at the title and,
if there’re, sub -
headings, pictures
 Ask yourself the 5
questions
 Go to the exercise
section and ask
yourself: “
what must I do?”
 Read the instruction
very carefully
 Go to the text and
paraphrase
 Underline the key
words / sentences
who may help you
 Come back to the
exercise (list of
headings) and match
the suitable one.
Skimming process must be use
always, but very useful in
paragraphing exercise.
Labelling a diagram
In some exercise you must give a
demonstration of getting very
specific details and, therefore,
completing a diagram.
So, here are some tips:
 Look the text for
pictures, headings …
 5 questions
  go to the exercise on. However,
section: What must I something that give
do? you a more clear
 Back to the text explanation.
 You must isolate the
portion of the article
where spoken about Identifying opinion/attitudes
the diagram (save and making inferences
time)
 Skim the selected The second hardest part is this
portion one, but with if we stay very
 Underline any key concentrated and calm, the
words or sentence game is well done!
who can help you
 Put the keyword into o Identify fact, opinion and
the diagram claim:

Identifying main supporting TIPS

ideas
 Look at the text for
This is the first hardest part of the title, pictures,
test. In fact you must, quickly as you headings, sub –
can, recognize ideas and supporting headings and so on
points (examples that make more  Ask the 5
clear a previous idea). questions
 Underline key
So, here some tips: sentences or words
who can helps you in
 Look at the article to do so.
for pictures,  A fact is
headings, sub – recognizable, for
headings (if there example by: “is a
are) variation in…”, “it is
 Ask the 5 a reflex caused by
questions …”, “that’s not
 Identify main ideas under…”;
and related  An opinion by: “I find
supporting points by playing to X very
key words or different from …”
sentences. Usually a  A claim by: “Based
supporting point is on our findings…. :
an example or a are likely to be
sentence that helps minimal”.
you make more clear
the text.
So it can begin with:”
For example…”, “It
could be seen by X
process…” and so
Reading task (continue) - Come back to the text and get
the related information for doing
o YES , NO AND NOT GIVEN: the task

TIPS:

 Read very carefully

the rubric task
instruction
 NO = claim
expressed in the
question is the
opposite of the view
in the passage
 NOT GIVEN = you
can find nothing
about this idea in the
passage
 The questions will be
presented in the
order in which the
answers occur in the
text
 Underline the key
words on the
questions
 Come back to the
text and look for the
keywords
 If you find them, in a
paraphrasing way as
well, check if is YES
or NO
 If you don’t find
information, then is
NOT GIVEN

Summarizing, into a reading

situation we must do, for every
article:

- Look at the title, pictures,

headings, sub – headings
- Ask yourself the 5 questions,
this help you to interact with the
text
- Go to the rubric instruction and
read it very carefully