Why Paraphrasing Matters
- 1Both Task 1 and Task 2 require you to paraphrase the question in your introduction.
- 2Copying the question word-for-word guarantees a low score for Lexical Resource.
- 3Good paraphrasing shows vocabulary range AND grammatical flexibility.
- 4You need 3 techniques: synonym replacement, grammar change, and word order change.
- 5The goal is to express the SAME meaning in DIFFERENT words and structure.
Technique 1 โ Synonym Replacement
"children" โ young people / adolescents / the younger generation / minors
"increasing" โ rising / growing / escalating / on the rise
"important" โ significant / crucial / essential / vital / of great importance
"solve" โ address / tackle / resolve / deal with / mitigate
"many countries" โ numerous nations / a growing number of countries / countries worldwide
"cause" โ lead to / result in / give rise to / contribute to / trigger
Tip: Do NOT change technical terms or proper nouns. "Carbon dioxide" stays as "carbon dioxide". "IELTS" stays as "IELTS". Only paraphrase general vocabulary.
Technique 2 โ Change the Grammar
Active โ Passive: "People use technology daily." โ "Technology is used on a daily basis."
Verb โ Noun: "People consume more." โ "There has been a rise in consumption."
Adjective โ Noun: "Cities are polluted." โ "Pollution in cities has become a concern."
Clause โ Phrase: "Because the population is growing..." โ "Due to population growth..."
Positive โ Negative: "Few people disagree." โ "Most people agree." / "It is widely accepted that..."
Technique 3 โ Change Word Order
Original: "Some people believe that university should be free for all students."
Reordered: "The question of whether all students should receive free university education is widely debated."
Original: "The graph shows the number of tourists who visited Australia from 2010 to 2020."
Reordered: "Tourist arrivals in Australia over a ten-year period from 2010 to 2020 are illustrated in the graph."
Tip: Changing word order is the hardest technique but the most impressive. Combine it with synonyms for a Band 7+ paraphrase.
Full Paraphrase Examples
Q: "Some people think that governments should spend money on public services rather than the arts."
Paraphrase: "It is often argued that state funding should be directed toward essential public services instead of cultural and artistic endeavours."
Q: "The chart shows the percentage of people who used the internet in three countries between 2000 and 2020."
Paraphrase: "The chart illustrates the proportion of the population accessing the internet across three nations over a twenty-year period."
Q: "In many cities, traffic congestion is getting worse."
Paraphrase: "Urban traffic congestion has become an increasingly severe problem in cities worldwide."
Q: "More and more people are choosing to live alone."
Paraphrase: "A growing number of individuals are opting for single-person households."
Paraphrasing Mistakes
- MISTAKE: Changing every single word, including technical terms. "Carbon emissions" should NOT become "gas releases".
- MISTAKE: Using synonyms that change the meaning. "Children" and "teenagers" are NOT the same.
- MISTAKE: Only changing 1-2 words and keeping the rest identical. This is not paraphrasing.
- MISTAKE: Making the paraphrase longer than the original question. Keep it concise.
- MISTAKE: Using a thesaurus blindly. "Big" does not always equal "gargantuan". Context matters.
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