🌹 BAND 7 LR TIPS🌹
A common mistake made by students is the overuse and incorrect use of formal vocabulary. Most seem to think that the more formal vocabulary in their writing, the higher the mark for LR. This is a misconception, to say the least.
Firstly, what we would like to emulate is the natural writing of natives, and this is never overloaded with formal vocabulary. Most of the examiners will be native speakers, and will find a text that is crammed with formal vocabulary very strange and unnatural.
In addition to that, many students learn formal words that are rarely, if ever used in academic writing. There is no point using words that nobody uses or knows. I was born and brought up in the UK, with an English mother. I also read quite a lot, but I've never seen a lot of the vocabulary used by students in essays. I have to use a dictionary to check if words exist sometimes! I doubt examiners will spend the time checking up on words, or will appreciate the use of words that aren't used or are out of use.
Moreover, the use of formal vocabulary is more likely be incorrect than commonly used words. This means the more words you use, the higher the rate of mistakes. Mistakes aren't just with spelling, mistakes could be with collocations, how the words are grouped. For a band 7, the accuracy with vocabulary should be high, so use of vocabulary that one isn't 100% sure of will make the chance of getting a 7 for LR very slim.
So, you might ask, what should we do for a band 7 in LR? Here are some things to make sure that you do:
📌 Use some abstract nouns. These are nouns that you can't experience with your 5 senses, for example: courage, information, anger, sensitivity, etc. There is no need to overload the writing with them of course!
📌 Use some collocations. A great book for collocations is Collocations in Use. Again, make sure that you focus on accuracy.
📌 Avoid vocabulary that is informal. Informal vocabulary should be avoided in academic writing. This only place for it is in the GT exam when writing an informal letter.
📌 Work on your spelling. Practise doing dictation daily. Also, writing essays with the spell check turned off, and then turned by on can help you to quickly identify spelling mistakes. Try to write the correct form of the words you spelt wrong a good 20-30 times.
📌 Spend a good 30 minutes daily reading model answers from native speakers. This will give you more of a feeling for which words are used by natives and which aren't. It will also give you a feeling for connotation and you'll be able to pick up how to collocate words.
📌 Only use words that you are sure of. The accuracy of band 7 LR is very high, so don't gamble. It's common for students to get words wrong that they are 100% sure of incorrect, so adding to that words you aren't confident using is a recipe for disaster.
📌 It would make your writing sound a lot more natural if it had a few formal idioms in it. Avoid idioms unless you know the level of formality of them. Most idioms are informal, so only use them when you are sure of them.
📌 Finally, only use any of the vocabulary mentioned when it is suitable. Trying to force words into writing just to show off will make your writing sound strange, and will make your writing go off topic.
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