Knowing which words go together is important when selecting synonyms. Complete the sentences 1-6 with appropriate words.
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Category: Writing Task 2
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Sample IELTS Essay – Food Trade
The following essay is written by Ms Quynh – IELTS tutor.
In some countries, it is now possible for people to buy a wide variety of foods transported from all over the world. To what extent do the benefits of this development outweigh the drawbacks?
The rapid development of new technology and global trade has made it increasingly easy to buy imported foods no matter where we are. Imported food consumption is, in fact, growing in popularity and it is claimed to be a positive trend. In this essay, however, I will argue that it causes more threats than benefits to the global market.
There may indeed be good arguments for encouraging importing foods from other countries as consumers would have a wide variety of food choice. It could also be argued that improving global food trade will boost the economies of developing countries. Some African countries’ economies, for example, rely heavily on exporting food to the European market.
However, local cuisine is an important aspect of local culture. Hence, protecting the competitive advantage of local foods is preserving traditional culture. It has been observed that Western food is becoming popular in Asian countries and young consumers are using more and more ingredients imported from the West in their recipes. It might come to a point where people use more imported foods and the local cuisine gradually disappear.
Moreover, as foods imported from Western countries have been engineered with new technologies, it may taste better than the local ones, therefore, become more favored on the market. If local foods from the developing countries lose the battle in their home market, local manufacturers and farmers are unlikely to have enough resources to continue their innovation efforts and export to other countries. This is probably why Asian countries, such as Vietnam, encourage local consumers to use domestic foods.
So in the end, if the goal is to ensure sustainable development all over the world, we must first focus on providing high quality foods to local markets and ensuring its advantages there. Only then would global food trade bring benefits to all parties.
(310 words)
Listen to the recording. You will hear an extract from a lecture about how children learn to behave. Try to distinguish the supporting details and decided whether they are examples or argument. Choose the appropriate answer.
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- A woman turns off her cell phone as she enters a movie theater.
- A driver eats a candy bar and puts the paper wrapper in the ashtray.
- A couple decides to have a baby.
Being polite, neat, and family-oriented are characteristics of the well-socialized American. Socialization is the process of learning how to behave in the society we live in. For societies to exist, there must be some organized way of teaching the members what is expected of them and how they are to behave. Through socialization, the infant develops into a person like one of those describe above.
Every society tries to socialize its members. The task is performed by several groups and institutions (called socializing agents). The family, the school, and the peer group (that is, people of the same age) are the most important socializing agents. Of these, the family is the most important, especially during the first few years of life. A review of various studies of families has concluded that warm, supportive, moderately strict family environments usually produce happy and well-behaved children; and that cold, rigid, and overly strict families tend to cause youngsters to become rebellious, resentful, and secure (Gecas 1981).
How, then, do families and other socializing agents teach children how to behave? Two important ways are sanctions (rewards and punishments) and by modeling.
Rewards and punishments
Sanctions are consequences following a behavior that influence whether the behavior will be repeated. Positive sanctions mean that the behavior is followed by something that is a reward. If a child asks a parent “May I have some gum please?” and the parents gives the child some gum, the child learns that saying “please” at the end of a request results in getting what he asked for. Negative sanctions (also known as punishments) mean that something bad happens after a behavior occurs. When a child says “Gimme some gum” and the parent says “No gum until you learn to ask politely” and does not give the child the gum, the child learns that it is not a good idea to speak this way because he does not get what he wants.
Modeling
Modeling refers to learning by watching the behavior of others – especially parents – and copying that behavior. Modeling influences both positive and negative behavior. For example, children who are respectful to elderly people have probably seen their parents do things such as helping older people on trains and buses. On the other hand, children whose parents are alcoholics are more likely than other children to become alcoholics themselves.
Differences across cultures
It is easy to assume that every culture socializes children in the same way. Studies of other cultures, however, show that children are socialized differently depending on the culture they are brought up in.
A study of 6- to 11-year-old children in six farming communities in the United States, Kenya, Okinawa, northern India, the Philippines, and Mexico is a good example of these studies. Beatrice and John Whiting (1975) found a big difference between the types of household chores that children were expected to do in these cultures. More importantly, they found that parental expectations about work around the house were an important part of children’s socialization. Where children were expected to take care of other younger children and do chores that helped the whole household (as in the Kenya and Mexican community studied), they quickly learned to be responsible and caring toward others. In communities like the one studied in the United States, where children were only expected to do chores such as cleaning their rooms and picking up toys, they were less likely to develop these traits at an early age. Of course, not every family in a particular culture socializes their children in exactly the same way – and this would be true of expectations about household chores also. Nevertheless, many cross-cultural differences in socialization have been identified by researchers.
Other evidence of these differences in socialization practices comes from a study of how traditional Vietnamese and Chinese socialize their children. In these families, the needs of the group are seen as more important the the needs of the individual, and so children learn that their first responsibility is to their parents rather than to themselves. For example, many children work hard at school so that their parents will be proud of them.
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IELTS Vocabulary – Food
Many experts advise that you should never learn a single word by itself but learn groups of words that “travel” together. It’s simply because we don’t communicate using individual words, we communicate with phrases and sentences. So, instead of giving you a list of words, I’d ask you to learn new words through reading and listening. By doing that, you will learn how to apply those words in different contexts.
You can learn many new words and phrases related to nutrition by reading this IELTS essay about whether everyone should turn to vegetarian diet.
Listen to the following recording. You will hear some common expressions about food and eating. You can listen to it as many times as you need. After completing the transcript, you can click on the blanks to see the answers.
My mother radically changed her eating habits a few years ago. In the past, she ate a lot of(food that is not nutritious/healthy) and was overweight. Sometimes she would try to(eat less food and healthier food), but it would never last. But now she understands how unhealthyare – they’re full of(chemicals added to food) that contribute to weight gain and heart problems.
Nowadays, she eats aincluding a lot of(meals that are healthy and nutritious) that she prepares herself. She doesn’t buybecause she thinks the prices are outrageous, but she stocks up on(fresh fruits and vegetables) so that she can grab an apple or some veggies when she wants a quick snack (something small and fast to eat). She has also learned toand watch her portion sizes (how much food you take).I often stop by her house when I’m in the mood for a. The other day she made a hearty stew (a thick soup with lots of flavors and ingredients) that was full of beans and vegetables. My brother, who has a(the capacity to eat a lot), had a(a second portion) – but I found the stew so filling that I could barely finish my bowl.
My mother recently told me that she’d like to try some. I was surprised to hear that, because a few years ago she had a bad experience after getting(when you get sick because of contaminated food) at a Japanese restaurant. So tomorrow I’m taking her to a Brazilian steakhouse. I told her to eat light meals (small meals) during the day so that she doesn’tfor dinner (eating food earlier, and then not being hungry for a meal later).
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IELTS Writing – Food
The following essay is extracted from Achieve IELTS 2 (Student’s Book). Read the essay and then try to summarise the points for and against vegetarianism. By summarising what you read, you can develop your paraphrasing skill, which is extremely important in IELTS and studying at international university.
- Why, according to the author, some people choose to become vegetarian or vegans?
- Why, according to the author, not everyone should turn to vegetarian diet?
Today many people are vegetarian of some sort of description, from people who eat mainly vegetables, along with dairy products such as milk, cheese and eggs, to vegans who do not eat animals or any animal products at all. In this essay I am briefly going to look at the argument for and against eating animals from moral, health and environmental perspectives.
The first and foremost reason is that eating meat is murder. Some people think it is wrong to take the life of another creature for pleasure, and as we can get the same proteins and nutrients from other food sources that can get from eating meat, the only reason to eat meat is for pleasure. Alternatively, it could be argued that what we eat is a matter of personal choice according to how we feel and what suits our bodies best. Some people enjoy life more and feel healthier when they eat meat.
This brings me on to the second point: health issue. It is said that we can get all the nutrients from plants that we can get from meat. In other words, we can obtain the same proteins and nutrients from other food sources that we can get from eating meat: proteins from pulses like lentils and beans; calcium, protein and other vitamins from dairy products; vitamins, minerals and fibers from vegetables. However, plants on the whole are very poor sources of protein, especially protein containing amino acids. These are available in some plants, but not in great quantities. Conversely, there are plenty of proteins containing amino acids in milk, eggs and fish which is why many vegetarians still eat animal products.
Now let’s look at the environmental issues. Perhaps the most serious reason for becoming vegetarian is ethical. People go hungry because a lot of land is used to grow food for animals rather than people. For example, in the US, 157 million tons of food per year – all suitable for human consumption – is fed to animals. This produces just 28 million tons of animals protein in the form of meat. Then again, if we look at this more closely, it is clear that millions of animals on farms are bred for food. To put it simply, if people became vegetarian, there would be no need for these animals and we would have to kill them all. Rather than saving these animals, it would result in killing them instead of looking after them responsibly and killing them for a good purpose at the end of their natural life cycle.
In conclusion, I believe that is it everyone’s right to eat what they want. However, cutting down on the amount of meat we eat has benefits for our health and our environment and is fairer to other animals.
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IELTS Vocabulary – Family
Family is one of the most common topics in IELTS Writing and Speaking. You might be already familiar with the vocabulary regards to this topic. However, you need to use uncommon words, i.e. nuclear family, in order to obtain a high score in Writing.
Listen to the following recording and complete the transcript. You can listen to it as many times as you need. After completing the transcript, you can click on the blanks to see the answers.
Your parents and(brothers and sisters) are your– and your includes all your relatives – uncles, cousins, great-aunts, etc.
You can use ato diagram the relationships among your family members. A person who is related to you by a long series of connections can be called a [5].
If you’re lucky, you have aor a– these expressions refer to a family that has good relationships, where everyone loves each other and helps each other. If you were raised in a loving family, then you probably had a– that means you had nothing to worry about when you were young.
On the other hand, a family in which the relationships are bad or unhealthy can be called aIf the children experience abuse, poverty, or problems with the law, we can say they had a
Perhaps the parents went through a – that means a separation in which there were bad/angry feelings between the husband and wife. It’s also possible to have a, with a prolonged legal battle involving lots of conflicts about the separation of the former couple’s(money and possessions). The decisions about the separation of assets are made in the. A family in which there are divorces or separations is sometimes called a.
Sometimes the mother and father fight overof the children – that refers to who has the primary responsibility of caring for the kids. A judge can grant– that means the ex- husband and ex-wife share the responsibility – orto only one parent. For example, a judge might award sole custody to the mother, and the father has to pay– regular payments to help with expenses for the kids.
If it was adivorce /separation – that means the ex-husband and ex-wife agreed to separate without fighting – then they will probablywith each other (meaning to have a polite relationship without …………….).
If a woman gets pregnant without being married or in a relationship, then she will become a single mother. Some women in this situation choose to have an, and others prefer to give the baby up forThe time when the baby is planned to arrive is called the– you can also say the baby is due in mid-October, for example.
After the woman has the baby (or to the baby), the baby is given to the, who willthe child orthe child as if it was their own. Sometimes, when the adopted child is older, he or she tries to find their birth mother ([29]).