Armstrong Street Case Study

EssoyW riting for EnglishT ests
Gobi Duigu
@ Gabi Duigu 2002
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Reviseda nd reprinted2 003
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ISBN: 0-9578996-1-0 lntroduction Stoge I The Question
L Understondinthge Question . . . .3
1.1 The Instructions . . . . . . 3
1.2 Kev Terms
2. AnolysingtheQuestion... ......7
2.1 FindingtheFocus . . . . . ' 7
2.2 Understandingt he Context ' . . .8
2.3DefiningtheTerms . . . . . . 1 0
Stoge2 Selectingo nd Presentinlgd eos
3, Findingldeos
b) Tbe enaironment is the m.ost important issttc in the utorld today. Discuss.
What are the instruction words?
4 EssoyW ritingf or EnglishT ests
In a) it is describe and in b) it is discuss. These rwo words indicate the two most common rypes of essay that one can write.
If you are askedt o describe something, then your essayw ill mosdy presentf acts and not opinions. However, if you are asked to discuss something, then your opinion is being asked for, and you are usually expected to eaaluate something, or to argue for or against something. At universiry or college you are expected to be able to discuss problems and ideas, rather than simply to report on facts, and so the IELTS essayq uestion presentsa common situation or a present-dayi ssuea bout which people have different opinions, and asks you to give your own views on this topic.
Here is the rypical wording of an IELIS essay task:
Present a written argument or case to an educated reader with no specialist knowledge of the following topic:
'Wb
liue in a technohgical age. Hotueuer, tecltnology cnnnot solue all the utorldi problems. Therefore sorne people argue that ue need to phce
First you need to think about how important animals are to people .
Begin by thinking of specific animals --+ny animals, inciuding insects: c0r{ mosquito sheep kagna ro o butterfly
Now organise these under a higher level of classification, e .g. cal l ion dog DOMESTAINCI MATS cow cat dog sheep
WILDA NlttlAtS l i o n kang aro o
I NSECTS rnosqituo buttref ly
16 EssoyW ritingf or EnglishT ests
Think again, and come up with a sub-division of domestic animals:
ANIMALWS HOSPER ODUCWTSE U SE c0w sh eep
PETS
dog cal Under insects we have harmful ones -srosquitoes, and useful ones - butterflies, which help to pollinate plants.
Now we can go back to our topic, the importance of animals to people, and we can say:
1) some animals are important to us directly because we use their products
(e.g. cows, sheep, goats etc.)
2) some animals give us pleasure as pets (dogs, cats, birds etc.)
3) some animals help us indirecdy e.g. by pollinating plants (bumerflies, bees etc.)
4) some animals are just interesting and amract tourists (lions, kangaroos etc.)
And i[ after thinking all that in our brainstorming and classifying, we suddenly think of horses, we may add the category of animab that uorh for zs (and