CONTOH WRITING TASK 1 IELTS -PIE CHARTS-

Author's note: I used to have a graphic illustration for this writing. But it turns out that neither using such image nor providing a url directing to it is considered as fair use, and I really want to make this blog as legal as possible, and to avoid having problems with copyright infringement. Please use the keyword of each first sentence of my writing to find the illustration from the website of the legal copyright holder.

The pie charts describe the use of water for various purposes along with the percentage in six regions in the world which are North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Central Asia, and South East Asia. The data can be divided into two different trends, based on the dominant use of water for different purposes which are industrial, agricultural, and domestic use.

North America and Europe use water mostly for the sake of industry. Industrial use of water contributes 40% and 53% in North America and Europe respectively. The second highest percentage is the use of water for Agriculture, with the proportion of 39% in North America and 32% in Europe. The least use of water is for the purpose of domestic use accounting for 13% in North America and 15% in Europe.

The dominant use of water for agriculture is presented by the data of South America, accounting for 71% of water use. The numbers are even higher in Africa, Central Asia, and South East Asia, contributing 84%, 88%, and 81% respectively. The second most dominant use of water in South America, Africa, and Central Asia is for domestic use and the least use is for industrial purpose.  Central Asia has the lowest percentage in terms of water usage for industry, contributing only 5%. South East Asia is a little bit different in which the second most dominant use of water is for industrial purpose, of about 12%. The lowest percentage is in domestic use that accounts for 7%. 

-Ross

VERB BAHASA INGGRIS -SEBUAH KEGALAUAN-

PENDAHULUAN

Halo semuanya, jumpa lagi dengan Britamerica. Malam ini kita akan sedikit membahas tentang grammar Bahasa Inggris. Sebenarnya saya ingin membuat postingan tentang reference letter hari ini namun karena tersadar bahwa ada sedikit kebimbangan mengenai verb dalam Bahasa Inggris, saya putuskan untuk membahas ini dulu saja.

BERBAGAI PENDAPAT MENGENAI VERB

Oke, mari kita mulai membicarakan verb dengan mempertimbangkan beberapa pendapat yang selama ini beredar. Selama ini, saya mendengar beberapa orang mengatakan bahwa verb jumlahnya ada 16. Sebagian yang lain mengatakan bahwa jumlah verb ada 12. Dulu sempat bingung dan pertanyaan tentang verb ini menjadi salah satu pertanyaan paling “unsettling” dalam sejarah kuliah linguistik.  Sampai sekarang pun masih belum jelas jumlahnya ada berapa, but at least saya sudah menemukan beberapa penjelasan untuk tiga kemungkinan yang ada.

PENDAPAT PERTAMA

Pendapat ini masih sangat umum dimiliki oleh sebagian besar orang yang saya tanya “ada berapa verb dalam Bahasa Inggris?”. Dulu saya juga sempat berpikir bahwa verb ada 16. Namun itu dulu sekali ketika masih SMA. Sepertinya, saya dulu menganggap conditional sentence juga merupakan verb sehingga mendapat angka 16 tersebut but, it is actually possible. Satu hal yang membuat saya bingung adalah beberapa contoh seperti kombinasi Past Future Tense yang aneh menurut saya karena bagaimana mungkin sesuatu terjadi di masa depan dan masa lalu secara bersamaan L. Anyway, dalam beberapa contoh, susunan S+to be (past)+going to+V inf+C sering disebut sebagai Past Future Continuous Tense, dimana to be+going to ini menggantikan modal will dengan sedikit perbedaan bahwa future tense going to akan dilakukan dalam waktu dekat (tidak seperti will+Vinf). Saya sendiri masih agak sangsi dengan pendapat ini. Well, wallahu alam.

PENDAPAT KEDUA

Saya mendengar pendapat kedua ini dari keterangan senior yang lulus dari Applied Linguistics University of Edinburgh dan sempat ketemu (dan memberikan fakta-fakta menarik -namun menohok- tentang Bahasa Inggris yang sebagian besar tidak saya ketahui). Mas ini mengatakan bahwa verb dalam Bahasa Inggris sebenarnya ada 12. Mas ini juga menolak kepercayaan 16 verb karena ada tabrakan Tense Past dan Future seperti apa yang sudah saya jelaskan tadi. Verb sendiri terdiri dari 2 elemen penting yaitu:

Tense (the time when certain action, state or event happens, consisting of Past, Present, and Future)

Aspect (grammatical category which expresses how an action, event or state extends over time, consisting of Simple, Continuous, Perfect, and Perfect Continuous). The notion is better explained by following table:

Tense	Past	Present	Future
Aspect
Simple	Simple Past Tense S+V2+C	Simple Present Tense S+V1+C	Simple Future Tense S+will+V inf+C
Continuous	Past Continuous Tense S+was/were+Ving+C	Present Continuous Tense S+is/am/are+Ving+C	Future Continuous Tense S+will+be+Ving+C
Perfect	Past Perfect Tense S+had+V3+C	Present Perfect Tense S+has/have+V3+C	Future Perfect Tense S+will+have+V3+C
Perfect Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous Tense S+had+been+Ving+C	Present Perfect Continuous Tense S+has/have+been+Ving+C	Future Perfect Tense S+will+have+been+Ving+C

Keterangan Tense

Past adalah segala sesuatu yang terjadi di masa lampau

Present adalah segala sesuatu yang terjadi di masa kini

Future adalah segala sesuatu yang terjadi di masa depan

Keterangan Aspect

Simple adalah aspect yang menjelaskan: sesuatu yang sifatnya habitual, sesuatu yang selalu terjadi atau dilakukan, serta general fact atau fakta yang bersifat umum

Continuous adalah sesuatu yang sedang terjadi dan masih on progress

Perfect adalah sesuatu yang sudah terjadi atau yang sudah selesai dilakukan

Perfect Continuous adalah sesuatu yang sudah dilakukan (for some time) dan masih dilakukan sampai sekarang

(sudah mulai pusing?)

C disini adalah Complement yang sifatnya opsional. Sobat mungkin sudah tahu bahwa yang wajib ada dalam sebuah kalimat Bahasa Inggris adalah Core (S+V) sedangkan selain Core disebut Complement. Ada banyak kemungkinan sih C ini, bisa:

S+V+O

S+V+Adv

S+V+O+Adv

S+V+ Gerund phrase

S+V+ To infinitive phrase

Dst.

PENDAPAT KETIGA

Nah, pendapat ketiga ini agak problematic karena saya hanya membaca pendapat beberapa ahli Bahasa. Jadi beberapa dari mereka ini berpendapat bahwa Verb di Bahasa Inggris hanya 8 (Lho kok bisa?). Iya. Ini terjadi karena mereka menganggap Future bukan sebagai Verb (Lho kok bisa? (2) ). Nah itu, sobat pasti tahu bahwa ada dua aturan yang secara ketat mengatur Verb, yaitu Tense dan Number. Tense ini biasanya disematkan dengan pemberian inflection pada verb asli, seperti pada kasus inflection -s di “walks” atau inflection –ed di “walked”. Somehow, Future ini bukannya menggunakan aturan inflection tapi malah menggunakan aturan Modal+V inf yang beda sendiri dengan teman-teman sejawatnya. Karena sifat berani beda inilah, Future terkadang tidak dianggap sebagai Verb. Jika mempertimbangkan penggunaan Verb dalam Bahasa lain seperti Bahasa Perancis, maka pendapat ketiga ini menjadi agak problematic karena kombinasi aller+infinitive (seperti di Je vais aller en Francais) sendiri masih dianggap sebagai Verb. Saya sendiri masih mencari aman dengan tidak menggunakan pendapat ketiga ini. Masih perlu belajar lagi untuk menegaskan pendapat ketiga tentang 8 Verb dalam Bahasa Inggris. So if you folks have any opinions, feel free to share. For the sake of improvement laah.

Sekian penjelasan galau saya tentang Verb dalam Bahasa Inggris. Kurang lebihnya, harap maklum.

-Ross

CONTOH WRITING TASK 1 -PROCESS-

Halo, jumpa lagi dengan blog author yang hari ini akan kembali memberikan contoh Writing Task 1 IELTS. Salah satu jenis writing yang menjadi masalah bagi sebagian test takers adalah jenis proses karena menurut mereka proses dalam gambar yang diberikan biasanya sangat tidak familiar atau spesifik untuk rumpun ilmu tertentu. Seperti contoh dibawah ini, sebuah pembagkit listrik tenaga air yang mungkin, tidak semua orang memahami cara kerjanya. Namun sobat tidak perlu khawatir karena serumit apapun sebuah proses dalam Task 1 Writing, masih bisa dikerjakan dengan common sense meski dengan effort yang sedikit banyak ketika memahami gambar. Untuk materi Writing Task 1 bisa dilihat kembali di

MATERI WRITING TASK 1

Berikut ini contohnya:

Author's note: I used to have a graphic illustration for this writing. But it turns out that neither using such image nor providing a url directing to it is considered as fair use, and I really want to make this blog as legal as possible, and to avoid having problems with copyright infringement. Please use the keyword of each first sentence of my writing to find the illustration from the website of the legal copyright holder.

The picture describes the stages of producing electricity by using a hydroelectric dam. There are eight components described in the image which are reservoir, intake, penstock, turbine, generator, power house, long distance power lines, and the river. In general, the process of the production of electricity can be divided into three different stages consisting of input, process and output stages.

Firstly, input stage is done by storing huge amount of water in the reservoir. Intake functions to regulate the amount of water flowing through the penstock. It can be closed or opened depends on how much water is supposed to go through the penstock. Secondly, the process is done when considerable huge amount of water flows through the narrow path along the penstock and produce high pressure force that rotates the turbine. The turbine is connected to a generator located inside a power house. The generator functions to transform mechanical force produced by the turbine into electrical force. The output stage starts taking place when the electrical power produced by the hydroelectric dam is distributed through long distance power lines connected to the power house. The water that has gone through all necessary process is then released and goes back to the river.


Another way to explain the process

The picture explains the process of generating electricity using hydroelectric dam. There are eight components depicted in the picture. The process includes the use of natural force as well as human-made elements.

First of all, the water is dammed to create a reservoir. The reservoir increases the potential energy of the water. The water in the reservoir then goes through the intake, which functions to regulate the amount of water going to the next stages. The water which passes the intake flows to a narrow path called penstock. Penstock is used to increase the water pressure, so that it becomes powerful enough to rotate the turbine. The rotation of the turbine produces kinetic energy.

The kinetic energy produced by the turbine is turned into electricity a generator which is located inside a powerhouse. From the powerhouse, electrical energy is distributed through long distance power lines. The water that has gone through all process flows back to the river.


-Ross

IELTS WRITING TASK 2 TIPS

WRITING TASK 2

Hallo guys, this is me again, your most charming blog author of all time. So today, we are going to talk about a strategy to do your IELTS Writing Task 2. As you may have known, we already discussed the material for the writing along with a simple yet powerful template.

 If you still haven't checked it yet, go to this link

WRITING TASK 2 MATERIAL

We also have some samples of Writing Task 2 that you can find in this blog, or take a look at this example

WRITING TASK 2 SAMPLE

TIPS

However, some of you may still find it difficult to do the writing and this post will try to find out what kind of difficulties are common in IELTS Writing Task 2 and how to solve the problem. Here are some suggestions for you:

a. Familiarize yourself with the topics 

The topics for IELTS Writing are actually quite typical and thus you can actually do some exercises before having the real Writing test. Some of you folks, are big fans of internet that you may be able and willing to crawl all day long for new information. Make this a good way of expanding your knowledge and vocabulary. Do not restrict your reading list only to the topics that you like. Do not just read show and fashion articles. Instead, expose yourself to a wider range of reading, starting from arts, politics, economy, or even international affairs. Do bare in mind that I don't suggest you to master the topic and become an expert in the fields aforementioned. No. You just need to familiarize yourself with the structure of the writing of different articles. It is quite safe to assume that each topic may have specialized terms and in fact, the arrangement of the writing is also different. At this point, we have to go back to the rule stating that:

To be a good writer, you need to be a good reader

You can be a good reader by reading good articles

And you can read good articles written by good writers of different topics

b. Find good examples

Some people find it really hard to start a writing, simply because they have no idea. A little peculiar, but it does happen. So, here is the deal. Every time you get a topic from which you have to write an essay, try to think of what happens around you. Try to take some real examples and try to give some arguments based on what you feel and think of that particular examples. Let's say, you have an article about the negative effect of internet that eventually affects one's social life. You can just think of a game addict in your school or neighborhood and list some of the social problems he/she may have. You can say that he/she may stay at home most of the time and have no time just for chatting or going to the bar. Once you find an example, try to explain it in a more formal way. And remember that you do not need to be an expert in E-sport or social science when writing about this topic.

c. Brainstorming

Try to do brainstorming before you actually start writing. Let's try this trick by using this topic.

In recent years, some countries have experienced very rapid economic development. This has resulted in much higher standards of living in urban areas but not in the countryside.

This situation may bring some problems for the country as a whole.

What are these problems?

How they might be reduced?

Okay, after reading the topic, you know that there are several points that you have to cover in your writing. Try to list them!

a. Economic development (what change does it bring?)

b. Standard of living (what kind of betterment?)
b1. Facilities
b2. Job

c. City (what's up with folks in urban area?)
c1. Having some trouble with high urbanization rate

d. Rural (what's with the folks living in rural area?)
d1. Need more facilities
d2. Need more jobs

e. Problems (what problems?)
e1. Food scarcity as the folks leave the farm
e2. Urbanization
e3. Crowded city, rising crime rate, slum area

f. Solution (how to deal with the problems?)

f1. Better facilities
f2. More jobs (not depend on farm)

After having those main points, try to sort them out based on the template.

SAMPLE BASED ON TEMPLATE

Alright, enough for the material. Now let's take a look at this example and then try it by yourself. Remember, write at least 150 words and make sure you include all points as it has been explained in the template.

Overview

Economic development has brought about positive change in terms of the standard of living in many countries. There have been many aspects of life improved by the rise of economy such as public facilities, health, education, job opportunities, and many other positive things. However, there is still a gap between those who live in urban area and people who live in rural areas. This gap is worsen by the fact that a great deal of establishment is still centralized in big cities that eventually lead to a belief that rural citizens are left behind. 

Pretty good overview, right?

Now, you can expand the ideas by elaborating the difference of living in cities and living in rural area.

Give two most striking examples!

People in big cities have easy access to health facilities and more job opportunities, while citizens from rural area usually have to travel far away from just to get a proper medication. There have been several hospitals in the rural area, but it only gives basic medication and not quite ready for operation or has no specialists. In terms of job opportunities, citizens in rural area are restricted only to farming and in many cases, they only become a worker and not the land owners that the salary is not good enough. People in cities have many more choices and thus have better income.

Expand the explanation

Now, try explain the problems in more general way.
Gap in terms of economy and social welfare is not good for the country in general because it leads to other complex problems. The first problem is the high urbanization rate in which people from rural area leave their hometown to work in big cities. This can be a problem for the rural people for many of the young generation go to cities and abandon the farm. This may lead to food scarcity that has national impact. In some developing countries, some of the workers also come to city without having skill and experience and end up living in slum area or even getting involved in crime. This, in turn, also becomes a problem for people living in the city in a way that the place where they live becomes denser and crowded. Urbanization also results in many more social problems that could be harmful in not managed properly.

Provide solutions

Last, try to offer some solutions for the problems.
Since the gap is caused by economic aspect in the first place, government needs to manage the budget better, balance the spending and try to improve rural's standard of living. In terms of social justice, government needs to build better facilities in rural areas so that villagers are equally treated as those living in the cities. Instead of focusing only on farming, government can start building a creative industry and help the villagers market their products. Internet is a good way of marketing and hence improvement in terms of communication is also needed for better living. Once social and economic opportunities are well distributed, it is hoped that there will be balance between the rural and urban area.

Sound fair enough?

-Ross