🦩 IELTS essays: use abstraction in moderation 🦩

One huge problem I see in my students' IELTS essays is too much abstraction. I will tell you right off the bat - it is bad for Task Response. But how do you know it's too much?

📝 Look at this piece:

"Studying a foreign language is beneficial. When people study languages, they improve their cognitive performance as well as their memory. Additionally, people become better at problem solving and at switching among multiple tasks."

Substitute "language" with "mathematics" and the paragraph still works. This is how you know there is too much abstraction in it.

📝 Now consider these two sentences:

1. “If you study languages, you can communicate with foreigners and read content in the original.”
2. "Studying mathematics improves your memory because you have to memorize formulas and the multiplication table."

If you try to substitute "languages" or "mathematics" with something else, the sentences won't work. This is how you know the sentences are not too abstract and are instead topic-specific.

Abstraction is necessary. But use it in moderation and supplement it with topic-specific ideas.