Assessment Criteria Writing Task 1 of IELTS Academic Module

47 ANI SUSANA, 2012 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu

2.9.2 Assessment Criteria

The IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 will be marked in four areas. Candidates will get a mark from 1 to 9 on Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resources and Grammatical Accuracy. The final band for Task 1 will be effectively an average of the four marks awarded in these areas. It is said that Task 1 is less important than Task 2, and to calculate the final writing mark, more weight is assigned to the Task 2 mark than to the mark of Task 1. However, to get a good overall mark for the IELTS Academic Writing, both tasks have to be well-answered. These are four criteria assessed in Task 1: Task Achievement This criterion assesses how appropriately, accurately and relevantly the response fulfils the requirements set out in the task, using the minimum of 150 words. Academic Writing Task 1 is a writing which has a defined input and a largely predictable output. It is basically an information-transfer task which relates narrowly to the factual content of an input diagram and not to speculated explanation that lie outside the given data. In other words, Rooy 2010: 85 concludes that task achievement is a measure of candidates’ ability to summarise information presented in graphic form in the time given 20 minutes is recommended, using at least 150 words. Related to this criterion, Rooy suggests the candidates to ask themselves whether they have summarised significant features of the graphic text, have included key 48 ANI SUSANA, 2012 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu data to support and complete their summary, have completed sentences and avoided using bullet points, and whether they have written at least 150 words. Coherence and Cohesion Coherence and cohesion help organise the text. Cohesion refers to the micro level of the text – how words are linked to form sentences, and how sentences are joined together logically to form the argument. This is achieved in several ways Rooy, 2010: 85: agreement betwen subject and verb; with number singular and plural forms; agreement with case word forms before and after verbs, and possessive forms; and gender forms. These are all important features of language which help the reader follow a written text; the sequence and order of tense, and verb forms from different tenses, help organise information in a text; articles aan and the assist the reader follow the participants in a text for example: a man, the man, men; pronouns help the reader follow the participants and the arguments in a text; and conjunctions joining words are important for linking ideas, causes and results, giving reasons, presenting conditions and contingencies, and explaining and clarifying statements. Cole 2011 defines that cohesion is how sentences and parts of sentences link together. It matters because if our sentences are cohesive, our writing becomes easier to read and we become able to write more sophisticated English by linking ideas together. More than that, it is an important factor in how a writing is graded in IELTS Academic Writing, as with coherence it is 25 of the total score. 49 ANI SUSANA, 2012 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu There are a variety of ways to make our writing more cohesive. One very useful piece of advice is to make sure that each sentence starts with a reference back to the previous sentence, for instance in this example: There are many people who claim t hat global warming is the most significant threat facing us today . They argue this because it is a danger not only to the current generation , but also to the generations to come . Indeed, it is this threat to our future that is of most concern. For instance, some research shows that one effect of global warming might be there will not be enough food to feed the world in the near future. If that did happen… If we look at how this links together, we see: many people they pronoun t hat global warming is … this pronoun claim argue synonym not only but also a matching pair current generation generations to come repetition a danger this threat pronoun + synonym Indeed linking phrase for further explanation generations to come future global warming global warming repetition of technical phrase there will be not enough food that pronoun One very common mistake is to overuse certain linking phrases such as “furthermore” and “moreover”. This can be a problem because they are frequently misused: and to link badly is not any better than not linking at all. A secondary problem is that by only using such phrases, candidates forget to use pronouns especially “this” for linking Cole: 2010. 50 ANI SUSANA, 2012 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu Coherence refers to the organisation of the whole text – the macro level. This means the structure of the response – the introduction, body paragraphs and the concluding paragraph. It also means how paragraphs are organised – the topic sentence, supporting and developing sentences and concluding sentence. The use of transition signals linking words is important as theysignal the stages and sequence of the processes and procedures, narratives, and the logical development of ideas. Meanwhile, Kies 2011 states that coherence is product of many different factors, which combine to make every paragraph, every sentence and every phrase contribute to the meaning of the whole piece. Coherence in writing is much more difficult to sustain than coherent speech simply because writers have no nonverbal clues to inform them if their message is clear or not. Therefore, writers must make their patterns of coherence much more explicit and much more carefully planned. Coherence itself is the product of two factors – paragraph unity and sentence cohesion. Kies adds that paragraph unity can be achieved if a writer ensures two things. First, the paragraph must have a single generalization that serves as the focus of attention, that is a topic sentence. Second, a writer must control the content of every other sentence in the paragraph’s body such that a it contains more specific information thatn the topic sentence and b it maintains the same focus of attention as the topic sentence. Furthermore, to achieve cohesion, the link of one sentence to the next, should consider the following techniques: repetition, 51 ANI SUSANA, 2012 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu synonymy, antonymy, pro-forms, collocation, enumeration, parallelism, and transitions. Lexical Resource Lexical resource refers explicitly to the use of words. This means the range of vocabulary across academic topic areas and paraphrasing to easily and clearly summarise and describe a variety of graphic texts with an appropriate tone and level of formality. Besides, the command of word forms for example, machine, mechanic, mechanisation, mechanical, mechanisem mechanically; and the correct spelling the number of spelling mistakes is a clear indicator of language ability. Grammatical Range and Accuracy This refers to candidates’ command of the grammar of English and the rate of error, to how many mistakes the candidates make. Rate of error is another key indicator of English proficiency. How well the candidates manage active and passive voice structure; adjectivenoun and verbadverb choices for describing information; and the correct use of prepositions of time and place, and others. Grammatical range also refers to the range of sentence types and the length of these sentences. It is related to whether candidates use a mis of simple compound and complex sentences of varying lengths, Braverman 2008: 32 reminds candidates that when IELTS examiners grade the candidates’ Academic Writing Task 1, they look for this structure: introduction 1 paragraph, body 2-3 paragraphs and conclusion 1 paragraph. 52 ANI SUSANA, 2012 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia | repository.upi.edu The introduction should describe the purpose of the report and say what overall trends seen. For example, if the trend in the graph is rising or falling, it should be mentioned. Candidates need to remember that they are describing a graph to someone who does not see it, so their words must draw the picture. It includes telling what the graph is about, its dates and location. The body should describe the most important trends, while all information is summarized to avoid unnecessary details. For example, if there is a graph that has two peaks, they should be depicted clearly; when those peaks appear and what the peak values are. How many distinctive features the diagram has should be noticed and the information is divided into paragraphs; one paragraph for one feature or a group of similar features. Paragraphs should be linked by sentences that logically connect them to one another. The last, the conclusion, should sum up the global trends shown and compare them if possible. It means selecting what is important, organizing it, then comparing or contrasting it. Candidates’ opinions should not appear anywhere in the report. They should not include other information that does not appear in the graph because that kind of writing can be and probably will be penalized.

1.9.3 Assessing Academic Writing Task 1