Full Writing Course 2025: Duolingo English Test

do you find the writing questions on the dualingo English test to be challenging questions like interactive writing write about the photo and the writing sample well if you do find these questions to be difficult like many other test takers you are in the right place because this is my 2025 dingo English test writing course now this course consists of lessons covering all of the current writing questions plus some extra lessons to help with your vocabulary and grammar if you look somewhere down here in the video description you can see where each lesson begins and finishes

that way you can jump around as you please the first lesson is all about write about the photo which looks like this on the exam it's a pretty tricky one because you have to describe a photo in just 60 seconds which of course is not very long at all so in lesson number one I will cover tips and strategies to help you to Ace this writing question let's just get right to it one of the writing questions on the dingo English test is to write about a photo in 1 minute and this is challenging for

a lot of students because writing about a photo is simply just hard and you've got to do it in 1 minute so extra hard but there are actually just four simple things you need to know to describe a photo effectively so in this video I will show you these four simp simple things and I'll give you a bonus tip at the end so the first thing you need to know is how to begin your answer and I recommend you start by using a general summary where you write one sentence describing the photo in general this

is quite simple and a good way to start your answer let me show you an example of what I mean so we'll use this photo and a general summary looks something like this this photo shows a teacher teaching a group of young school students another example this is an image of a group of students and a teacher in a modern classroom these General summaries are a great way to begin your answer because they're fairly easy to write and it means that you can write one sentence quite quickly and we usually use the present simple or

present continuous to do this there are lots of ways to begin your general summary in these two examples I used this photo shows and this is an image of but there are more ways you can begin let me show you here you can say this is a picture of this picture shows this image depicts in this Photograph there is or there are I highly recommend that you memorize these statements and you practice typing them quickly remember you only have 1 minute to do this question type so if you practice typing these statements out quickly then

when you take your real dingo test you can do it and save some valuable seconds now let's move on to look at how you can write some more details in your answer to get a good score you will need to put some details in your description and there are a few ways to do this so let's take a look at these now one way to add detail to your answers is to describe the actions of the people or the subjects in the photo most photos will have a subject either a person an animal a vehicle

something like that let's take an example with this photo here the main subject is the teacher so I will describe what he's doing he is standing in front of an interactive screen and toring politely I might also want to talk about the students I could say the students are listening carefully to what the teacher is saying even though this photo was taken in the past when we describe it we typically use the present tenses and when describing the actions of the people or subjects we will use the present continuous like in this example I said

he is standing in front of an interactive screen and gesturing politely in this sentence I use the present continuous tense so describing the actions of the people or subjects in the photo is one way to go into detail but it's not the only way the next way is to describe the location of things this is a great way to add detail to your answer and to do this you're going to want to use prepositional phrases prepositional phrases are good to include in your answer because they are quite an advanced grammar type let's take a look

at an example the teacher is in front of the students who are sat in rows and there is a large interactive screen behind him in this example the two prepositional phrases are in front of and behind another example there is an interactive screen to the left of the teacher and a whiteboard directly behind him so you can see how describing the location using prepositional phrases can add lots of details to your description there are lots of prepositional phrases you can use here are a bunch of examples I recommend you take a screenshot of this and

study these and practice using them in your descriptions but that's not all you can also do one more thing which is quite Advanced to describe your photo and this is to make a speculation or to make a guess so making a speculation on the photo means that you're guessing what is happening based on the photo so for example here is my speculation he must be an Effective Teacher as the young students are focusing well on the lesson so do I know 100% that he is an Effective Teacher no I don't I'm just guessing or making

a speculation based on the photo but as I mentioned your speculation or your guess should be closely related to what's happening in the photo here's another example there is a large interactive screen behind the teacher that is likely being used for an educational game again I don't know 100% that is being used for educational game I'm just making a guess or a speculation based on the evidence in the photo there are lots of grammar structures you can use to make a speculation and a good thing is that typically these grammar struges are considered quite Advanced

so if you use them well in your answer it could boost your score and here are some of these grammar structures so to make a speculation about why is something happening now so in the present you can use modal verbs like must May might or can't be you can also use other words and expressions you might also want to speculate about something that happened in the past but affect in the present in that case you can use might have must have or could not have these are some examples of modal verbs there are more but

these are the basic ones so those are things you can write about in your photo but now I have a bonus tip for you and it is to always try to use descriptive language words like adjectives adverbs and prepositions using these words will give you extra points because vocabulary is on the scoring criteria and in my examples so far I have used lots of these words but let me show you one more time to remind you so this is a full answer and the descriptive language or descriptive words are in orange so we have young

in front of politely effective well these are all adjectives adverbs and prepositions which you can use to describe your photo in more detail another example example here the descriptive language is modern in front of large behind educational again useful descriptive words to describe a photo and boost your score for this question [Music] type hi and welcome to video two of this four-part series where I'm sharing key tips and strategies to help you to Ace the most challenging questions on the DU lingo English test I'm teacher Luke an expert D teacher and in this lesson we're

going to focus on interactive writing which looks like this on the exam I'm going to share with you three super tips to help you to Ace this tricky question so let's just get right to it before we dive into these tips let's just quickly review what the interactive writing question type involves this is actually quite a unique question so how does it work interactive writing has two parts first you'll see a question prompt and you have 5 minutes to write your response then after those 5 minutes you'll get a followup question and you'll have 3

minutes to respond to that while you're answering the follow-up question you can still see your original first response which you can use to guide you however you are not able to go go back and change or edit your first response so as you can probably tell when it comes to interactive writing on the dingo English test it can be easy to feel a bit stressed out but no need to worry because today's video will help you feel a lot more confident and I'll show you how to turn your okay answers into great ones with my

three super tips for improving your writing now although we Focus mainly on the interactive writing questions today you can still use these tips for the writing sample question this one here and you can also use these in your general English writing so these tips will be really helpful for you so let's just jump right into tip number one remember your structure structure is how you organize your answer what should you write first second and so on and of course this is critical for for scoring well as you can see here in the scoring criteria specifically

this point right here discourse coherence it doesn't matter if you use the most advanced vocabulary or write with perfect grammar without a clear structure your score will suffer because your ideas won't seem logical or coherent think of it like building a house you wouldn't start with the roof right you need to have the foundation the walls and then the roof or the whole thing will collapse and the same goes for your writing so let's break down a simple thre part structure you can use for any interactive writing question topic sentence start by clearly stating your

opinion or stance for example if the question asks whether you agree or disagree with something you could say I completely agree with the statement that or I strongly disagree with the idea that this makes your position clear from the start and is a good way to begin your answer there are lots of phrases you can use to begin your answer and here are 10 more phrases you could use you can get this PDF by clicking the link below let's see how you can use them in a full sentence this is a real dingo English test

question and we'll use this question throughout this video people are never satisfied with what they have they always want something more or different do you agree or disagree why give specific reasons for your answer and a sample topic sentence could go like this I am in complete agreement with the idea that people are never satisfied with what they have as I believe it is human nature to always seek more now after you've written your topic sentence you should move on to the main part of your answer this can be called the body or the main

main ideas since you only have five and 3 minutes to write your answers you are not expected to write down lots and lots of ideas instead I suggest thinking of one or two main ideas that are related to the question and support your topic sentence then you should develop your ideas with explanations examples or even writing about your personal experiences for instance you could say a strong example of this can be seen in or I believe this because and here are a bunch more phrases you can use again let's see these in a full sentence

based on the earlier dingo test question firstly people often want more because they tend to compare themselves to others for instance even if someone has a good job and a nice home seeing others with higher paying jobs or more expensive possessions can make them feel dissatisfied and want more another reason people are rarely satisfied is that achieving one goal often leads to setting Higher Goals personally after I bought my first car I was happy at first but soon after I wanted a more expensive model which shows how quickly satisfaction Fades okay now moving on to

the last part of your answer which is of course your concluding sentence you should try to wrap things up with a short concluding sentence that restates your main point but uses different words for example you might say in summary it's clear that this reinforces your position and shows off your vocabulary and here is an example in a full sentence in conclusion people naturally want more because they are always looking to improve and reach new goals which makes it hard to ever feel fully satisfied okay moving on to tip number two use higher level vocabulary on

interactive writing it's helpful to step up your vocabulary from using everyday words to more academic ones and if your test is coming soon a quick way to level up your vocabulary is by swapping out basic words for more advanced ones with similar meanings for example instead of saying important try crucial significant or or vital instead of problem you could say challenge issue or obstacle and for phrases like I think you could say in my opinion or it could be argued that using more advanced words will help demonstrate your lexical diversity and lexical sophistication which as

you can see right here are on the scoring criteria here's a bunch more words you can use and just a reminder you can get this PDF by clicking the link in the video description okay moving on to tip number three manage your time so this one is a very important one for all of the questions on the dingo English test but especially for interactive writing you shouldn't forget that you only have a short amount of time to write your answer so every second counts it is very easy to get caught up trying to make everything

perfect and then simply running out of time that's bad so don't let that happen to you so here are three steps to help you stay on track step one during the preparation you'll have time to read the question before you begin writing so quickly come up with one or two main ideas and mentally organize them using the structure we discussed remember you are not allowed to use a pen or paper during this exam so keep your plan and your ideas in your head step two when writing I don't recommend writing for the full 5 minutes

instead aim to stop a bit early and leave about a minute to go back and proof read your answer catching and fixing small mistakes can instantly boost your score and in my opinion it's a lot better than using your remaining seconds to write one more sentence step three for the follow-up question apply the same strategy here write for about 2 and 1/2 minutes and then spend the remaining time double checking your answer to make sure it's looking good now that we've talked about strategies for structuring your answers and improving your vocabulary let's talk about your

mindset a strong mindset can make a big difference on test day so here are a few tips to help you stay calm focused and confident during your dingo English test don't try to over complicate your sentences or answers just to sound more advanced clear and simple sentences are much better than long ones full of mistakes so focus on what you know and aim for Clear communication before you take the test make sure you're fully prepared by practicing often and learning different strategies I teach a lot of strategies in my videos so go through as many

as you can watch them and learn about about the different ways to answer the questions on the dingo English test stay grounded of course it's normal to feel pressure or stressed out during any test but try to stay calm because this will help you think more clearly trust your preparation and approach each question confidently if you feel nervous try to ground yourself physically take a sip of water have a deep breath hold on to your seat anything to gather your thoughts and relax these small actions will help you to stay focused and steady during the

test and there you have it by focusing on structure vocabulary and time management you'll be well on your way to improving your score on the interactive writing question on the dualingo English test now I recommend you watch this video right here because it will help you with another tricky question on the exam it's called listen then speak and it is a tricky one so this video will be helpful I'll see you here right now hi everyone I'm Luke an expert dualingo English test teacher and today we're going to take a look at a really difficult

task on this test and it is the 5 minute writing task this task is really hard because you've got to be able to write logically and coherently you've got to respond and answer the question directly and you've got a show off all of your grammar and vocabulary in just 5 minutes when I talk to students that have taken the dualingo English test I've noticed a really common feature and that is that their production score typically is the lowest score on their test the production subscore includes your speaking and writing and I think that students struggle

to get a good score on production because they're not able to answer this question type well so if that's you this video is is going to be so helpful for you we're going to go over some of the key points of the 5 minute writing task and then I'm going to give you some really useful tips to help you to organize your answer well and write with a logical and coherent structure but before I start if you think this video is useful for you please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel it

really does help me a lot okay well let's get started by looking at some of the key points of this writing task when you take the dingo English test and you have the writing task it looks something like this you have a question or a prompt on the left and you have to write your answer in the Box on the right it says that you must write at least 50 words if you are not able to write 50 words then you will get the lowest score on this task however as I'm going to mention later

on I think you should be writing a lot more than 50 words luckily on the dualingo English test they only give you this question type once in the whole test there is another writing task that is the describe and image task you'll have that three times during the test but for this 5 minute writing you only have it once and you have 5 minutes to complete this is incredibly short for a writing task which means you need to be very prepared before you take the test that you're going to be asked to think quickly and

respond in writing quickly without planning it's hard but you can do it so those were the key three points of this writing task but there are other things you should consider such as what style of writing are you going to be asked to do and of course how are you marked what is the criteria so let's take a look at that now you can find information on the dualingo English test website about all of the tasks you are going to do for this wri in task this is what they show us it says that the

independent tasks require test takers to describe recount or make an argument these require the test takers to demonstrate more discursive knowledge of writing in addition to language knowledge so there are two things to pay attention to here firstly is the style of writing you're going to be asked to do there are three Styles describe recount recount just means to talk about your experiences or you will be asked to make an argument when you make an argument you usually have to put forward some ideas for or against a topic and you are scored in these important

ways first grammatical accuracy and complexity this means are you writing correct sentences and are you using a range of grammatical structures simple structure and more difficult structures the next point is lexical sophistication and diversity this is all to do with your vocabulary are you using correct words and a range of different vocabulary items third point is Task relevance this simply means were you able to answer the question correctly fourth point which I think is very interesting is length so for this task like I mentioned ier you must write at least 50 words but if you

look here you can see that length is a part of the scoring criteria to me this indicates that you should be trying to write as much as you can as long as it stays coherent and cohesive even though 5 minutes is really short it is long enough for you to write a full paragraph and a full paragraph can be anywhere from 50 to 150 words and the last one is fluency now we normally think of fluency in terms of speaking but in terms of writing we can think of it as cohesion that means are you

able to write your ideas smoothly in a logical order that makes it easy to follow for the reader this is what we consider as fluency in writing as you can see this question type is not easy at all it tests your writing skills your language and grammar knowledge and also your thinking skills s and it's made especially difficult because you have to do all of that in just 5 minutes I get a lot of questions on my Facebook group about this writing task specifically to do with how to organize or how to structure your answer

so that's what we're going to do now I have some couple tips to help you to answer this question logically and to make sure that you're able to get the best score you can get so now let's take a look at these tips so my first tip is really simple but it's one that a lot of students struggle with and it is simply to answer the question fully so what does this mean well firstly let's quickly review what I showed you earlier when you get your writing question you'll be asked to do one of these

three things either describe recount or make an argument so it's quite important that you're able to recognize what type of writing you have to do do now let's take a look at a couple examples so let's say that this is your writing question the question goes like this a university plans to develop a new Research Center in your country some people want a center for business research While others want a center for research in agriculture which of these two kinds of research centers would you recommend and why so based on this do you think that

you're going to have to describe recount or make an argument well this is an example of a make an argument question basically you have to choose one of the options a business center or an Agriculture Center and you have to say why you think so that means you have to make an argument for one option so while you're reading this question you have to think quickly which one do I think is better and then I want you to think of two reasons why you think so those two reasons will be the main body of your

essay how about this question type here it says in general people are living longer today discuss some of the implications of this phenomenon here do you have to make an argument do you have to recount or do you have to describe well here you're asked to describe the implication you're not making an argument for something you have to describe the implications of the fact that people are living longer so here you need to think about either the effects or changes that this phenomenon people are living longer have on society and you have to describe them

so for this I think you should describe at least two implications and provide examples or further information to support your idea ideas here is a third example films can tell us a lot about the country where they were made what have you learned about another country from watching its movies so is this an argument essay a descriptive essay or is it a recount well as you've guessed this is actually a recount because this essay prompt is asking you to talk about your experiences what exact have you learned about another country from its movies so you're

talking about your experience to answer this question you would pick one country and again at least two things you have learned from its movies and provide examples of those things you've learned so that was tip number one it is really important that you're able to quickly identify what type of writing you're being asked to do are you being asked to make an argument describe something or recount which is to talk about your experience it's important to be able to identify quickly because task relevance is part of the criteria and the way you write will change

depending on the type of writing you're being asked to do okay now let's take a look at tip number two which is how to organize your answer so tip number two is by far the most important here and it is organizing your answer I think it's better to write this whole answer as one paragraph and your paragraph should include an introduction some supporting sentences and a concluding sentence you shouldn't forget that the DU lingo English test is an academic English test that's why lots of universities accept it so these universities want to know that you're

able to write in an academic and professional style and being able to write a logical and correct paragraph is a part of this academic writing style and these three features are key ingredients of a good paragraph okay so what should you write in your introduction well your introduction is simply a topic sentence so what is a topic sentence well it is the first sentence of a paragraph and it tells the reader what the paragraph is about this is really important because the reader needs to be able to understand very quickly what your whole paragraph is

going to say in addition to this it will inform your supporting sentences and your topic sentence States clearly your position or your opinion this is particularly true in argumentative writing so let's take a look at an example topic sentence let's say this is our question some people believe that they should keep all the money they earn and not pay tax to the state do you agree or disagree so the first thing you need to recognize that in this question type they want you to make an argument do you agree that people should keep all their

money or do you disagree your topic sentence for an argumentative writing should State clearly your opinion so this is what I wrote I disagree with the statement that individuals should keep all the money they earn and not pay taxes for two main reasons so do you think this is a good topic sentence I think it's pretty good for two reasons firstly I told the reader exactly what the paragraph is about secondly I gave my opinion right from the start so it's very clear what I think and thirdly I included a controlling idea the controlling idea

part is for two main reasons so why is this a controlling idea simply the reader now expects that I will discuss two reasons to support my topic sentence the controlling idea shows the reader exactly how my paragraph will be organized from now on so this is an example topic sentence now let's take a look at supporting sentences so what what are supporting sentences well they explain and they develop the topic sentence they discuss the topic sentence by explaining the main ideas and discussing those more fully supporting sentences usually include reasons examples facts results statistics or

anything else that proves your ideas are true so let me show you an example my topic sentence for this essay is what we just discussed I disagree with the statement that individuals should keep all the money they earn and not pay taxes for two main reasons okay so that's my topic sentence now I need to support my topic sentence by discussing this topic and explaining my ideas fully so my supporting sentence looks like this first and foremost taxpayer money collected by the government is used to fund basic amenities and public services such as running water

schools and hospitals so my first supporting sentence is clearly related to my topic sentence and it provides further information to support my topic sentence you could also include some more information just like this it's important to remember that without taxpayer money we would not have such basic services and our lives would be worse off as a result so those were an example of a topic sentence and one supporting sentence usually in an essay you will have more than one supporting sentence for the supporting sentences it's really important to know that they should be related to

your topic sentence this provides Unity to your paragraph and makes your ideas sound a lot more logical so be careful and make sure that your topic sentence and supporting sentences are related I've just shown you a small example but when you do your real essay you can include as many supporting sentences as you need okay now let's take a look at the third point of a good paragraph and that is the concluding sentence for this writing task in the DU lingo English test I believe it's important to include a concluding sentence so what is a

concluding sentence well a concluding sentence does these three things it is used to Signal the end of the paragraph it tells the reader the important points to remember and importantly it is often a paraphrase of the topic sentence your topic sentence and your concluding sentence should be closely related for the same topic this is my concluding sentence in conclusion even though many people argue that we should not pay taxes based on the reasons I based on the reasons discussed I believe taxation is vital in order to maintain a high standard of living remember in my

topic sentence I said that I disagree with the statement that people should not pay taxes here in my concluding sentence I basically say the same thing and I said that taxation is vital in order to maintain a high standard of living this is related to my supporting sentence where I talked about the basic amenities that taxation provides so as you can see the concluding sentence is linked to the topic sentence and the supporting sentences okay now let me put all of this together into one paragraph and show you how it's structured in this paragraph I've

also included more supporting sentences so we'll go through it together and I'll highlight some good points from this paragraph I strongly disagree with the statement that individual should not pay taxes to the state for two main reasons first and foremost taxpayer money collected by the government is used to fund basic amenities and public services such as running water schools and hospitals it's important to remember that without taxpayer money we would not have access to such basic services and our lives would be worse off as a result additionally taxes helps stabilize the economy through taxes the

government is able to pay off debts and invest in the country which in turn leads to a more stable and prosperous place to live in conclusion even though many people argue that we should not pay taxes based on the reasons discussed I believe taxation is vital in order to maintain a high standard of living okay so I think this is a pretty good paragraph it's not perfect of course but it's realistic to write a paragraph like this within 5 minutes so now I'll go through some of the good points of this paragraph Okay so firstly

the introduction and topic sentence is clear like I discussed earlier and I stated my opinion clearly right at the start I think this is important to do as one of the marking criteria was task relevance so this task is asking do I agree or do I disagree in my topic sentence I clearly answered that already by saying I strongly disagree I also use transition words in this paragraph to signal to the reader when I'm moving on to a new idea these transition words are the words in green here so we had first and foremost first

and foremost signal that I'm going to talk about my first idea and actually my most most important idea additionally is used to signal that I will talk about another idea related to the topic and in conclusion of course signals that I'm about to conclude my paragraph it's important to use transition words like these when you're writing your paragraph the third point I want to highlight is that I included two supporting ideas with additional information these two supporting ideas are very closely related to my topic sentence which is very important to do the two ideas are

underlined the first one is to fund basic amenities and public services and the second idea is to help stabilize the economy in order to provide more information to my supporting ideas I provided examples things like running water schools and hospitals and I discussed the implications which in turn leads to a more stable and prosperous place to live and the fourth good point is that I included a concluding sentence which summarized my topic sentence and was closely linked to my supporting ideas remember to include a concluding sentence when you're doing your paragraph This video was all

about the best way you can organize and structure your writing for this writing test task this task is particularly difficult but if you have a structure in mind and you know how to write a good paragraph that will make your life so much easier and before you take the dualingo English test make sure you practice this type of writing really often and give yourself just 5 minutes to do so don't forget you need to include a topic sentence supporting sentences which are related to your topic sentence and a concluding sentence as well I'm going to

make more videos on writing for this dulingo English test soon so if you want that please write yes Below in the comments or give me some ideas of things I can make videos about and that's it for me today thank you very much for watching I hope this was helpful thank you and I'll see you next time bye hi friends teacher Luke here so there is actually a new writing question on the dingo English test it's called summarize the conversation and it comes right after the interactive listening it looks like this on the test first

you do the listening part where you participate in an academic conversation you then do the summary where you summarize in writing everything you listened to and did in the academic conversation and that's what this video is about here I'm going to teach you all about the key points and give you lots of strategies to do well on the summary part of the interactive acve listening question a lot of students have asked me to make this video so I really hope it's helpful but very quickly before we start if you're new to this channel hi I'm

teacher Luke from d.com if you're looking for some tools to help you prepare for the DU lingo English test I recommend visiting our website especially our practice platform where you can practice this new interactive listening and summary question and you can check your answers immediately and of course we have lots of practice questions for all of the question Types on the T lingo test but anyway back to this video let's start off by talking about the key points of this summary question so as I mentioned it does appear immediately after the interactive listening and your

job is to write a short summary of the conversation in just 75 seconds so I'm sure you're thinking 75 seconds how can I write a summary in that short amount of time well don't worry I have some strategies I'll show you later on after the listen is done you are able to read the conversation before you begin writing now that's really important so after you've done the interactive listening like you can see on the screen now you are able if you have time left to go back to the start of the conversation and read it

through and I highly recommend you do that because that will give you lots and lots of ideas for your summary and of course it will remind you of what was said during the conversation but remember you can't take notes one of the the main rules on the dingo English test is that you are not allowed to use a pen and a paper so you can't take any notes that does make it harder but dingo are very concerned about test security and making sure no one can cheat so you're not allowed to use any pen or

paper during the test this summary contributes to your literacy and production subscores and the summary is scored based on the production subr criteria a lot of test takers I speak to find it really hard to get a high score in production so this is another question type you can use to boost your production score and it will be scored in the same way as the other writing questions using the production School criteria you can see here the first two points are concerned with grammar the following two are all to do with your vocabulary the next

point is all to do how well you answered the question this is called task relevance and the last one is considered with how much you're able to write in a short amount of time also known as fluency so that's the scoring criteria is the same for all the other writing questions on this exam as well now let's think about some different strategies you can use to answer the summary as well as you can the first one is really important and that is before you finish the listening part of this question type you should read the

whole conversation and the situation carefully so once again once youve finished the listening part it looks like this and you can read the conversation through fully but I want to stress that you don't just want to read the conversation you want to really focus on the situation because you can easily write your first and even maybe your second sentence just based on the situation provided actually that's exactly what dingo do in their sample answer let me show you what I mean so the situation says you are a student in a journalism class after today's lecture

on reporting you approach your professor to ask them more about what it means to cultivate sources then if you skip through this all the way to the end where juling will provide a sample summary you can see here that the first two sentences are basically paraphrasing the situation I asked my professor a question after class today I asked them to explain the concept of cultivating sources as a reporter so the first two sentences in this example was basically a paraphrase of the situation to paraphrase you typically just keep the ideas exactly the same but you

change the sentence structure and maybe the verb choice or nouns in the sentences and that's why I'm saying it's very important that you read the situation carefully cuz this will likely be the first and maybe even the second sentence in your summary so that's my first tip my second tip is also very important which is to study opening phrases before you begin your summary as you know already you only have 75 seconds to complete this task that's obviously not long at all so by studying opening phrases you'll know how to begin and that will save

you valuable seconds so what are some opening phrases well let me show you here so here are eight opening phrases you can use of course you need to be careful and select the right one depending on the conversation you listen to but a lot of these can be used for any situation again let's take a look at the sample answer from dingo the opening phrase dingo used was I asked my professor a question after class today so I strongly suggest that you study these opening phrases and that you practice type in them quickly like I

said that will save you valuable seconds on the test on top of that you'll know exactly how to begin and a lot of students struggle with actually getting started on these writing questions so don't let that be you and learn these opening statements remember that during the listening part of this question type you were participating in a conversation so you were acting as if you were one of the people talking so when you do the summary use the word I and I recommend you use the active voice cuz a lot easier and a lot more

natural when you're talking about yourself just as in the dualingo sample I asked my professor a question after class today okay next up you want to write paragraphs not bullet points since this is an English exam this one should be obvious but just to clarify you want to write full paragraphs and use full sentences don't use bullet points try to make your answer as complete as possible and number six is to follow a simple stru structure I've come up with a simple structure you can use for most of the conversations it's not perfect because the

conversations in the listening part can vary if you study and follow this kind of structure then you should be able to write more in the limited time you have like I said it's not a perfect foolproof structure but it can give you some ideas of what to write and help you to prepare step one of the structure you could write who did you talk to and what about remember the opening phrases I showed you for examp example I had a conversation with my professor about the low grade I got in my English writing class step

two is to go into more detail think about what were the main ideas or suggestions throughout the conversation my professor suggested that I use helpful Grammar and Writing resources on the University's website because these online tools can help me improve my Advanced grammar and teach me how to organize my academic essays so we've got the opening some more detail and the last part is all about the outcome I believe in most of the conversations there will be an outcome basically what did you say you were going to do during the conversation for example I agreed

with my professor and said that I'd begin using these online resources right away so that's some basic information and some strategies that do the summary well if you haven't watched my interactive listening video yet I recommend you do so right here because the summary and the listening are very closely linked so I'll see you in this video hi friends this is part two of the describing the photo miniseries I'm doing here on YouTube this is for the dualingo English test in my last video I described lots of strategies you can use to describe a photo

effectively and get the highest score you can for this writing question on the dingo test and this video is all about practice so I have prepared seven photos for you to practice with within the 1 minute time limit and after the 1 minute I will show you a sample answer I highly recommend you use this video and write your answers Below in the comments because of the short time limit for this question type practicing doing it a lot is really really helpful and we will start this practice in 1 second but very quickly in case

you missed the last video here is a brief summary of the strategies I taught so this is how you describe a photo you should begin with a general summary basically describing what the photo is about then you can describe the actions of the people or subject by using the present continuous tense you can also describe the location of the items in the photo for this you should use prepositional phrases and lastly you can also make a speculation use modal verbs or other phrases to do this and to boost your score you should use lots of

descriptive language adjectives adverbs for example now of course you don't have to do all of this in your answer remember you only have 1 minute but these are some guidelines for you to follow okay then well let's start with the practice and I'll see you at the end of the video [Music] [Music] [Music] by the way if you want to learn about how to describe a photo in a lot more detail that I do have a full writing course covering this question type you'll learn everything you need to know about how to describe a photo

well and I give you lots and lots of practice questions also included in the same course is the writing about a topic in 50 words or more again in this one I show you how to structure your answer effectively and how to use complex grammar and good vocabulary to get a great school if this is something you're interested in there's a link below in the description okay here's photo number two [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay guys well done you just

practice seven photos if this was helpful put a heart emoji Below in the comments to let me know and now I recommend you watch this speaking video here because on the DU linger test you also have to speak about the photo it's almost the same as writing but it is a bit different because you have longer to do it so this video here will help you with this speaking question okay I'll see you here bye for the main writing question on the dingo English test the read then write question type the one you can see

right here you need to write at least 50 words within the 5 minute time limit this is actually a requirement as you can see here on the official dingo test guide meaning it's vital that you're able to write at least 50 words within the time limit and in this video I'm going to help you to do that because I'm going to teach you some academic English phrases that will not only improve your answer but also increase the length of your answer trust me these are going to be really useful for you so let's get started

with some phrases you can use to introduce your opinions on the read then write question type you might get a question type like this this is an argument question where you have to State your opinion and make an argument for it when you get an argument question you need to stay your opinion so rather than using I think or in my opinion which are very common and kind of short you can use one of these phrases instead with regard to I believe that or with regard to many people believe that in the first part of

this sentence after with regard to you outline the topic and of course in the second part this is where you state your opinion here's a sample sentence with regard to employment many people believe that technology has both created New Opportunities and made some older skills Less in demand another phrase you can use to introduce your opinion regarding I'm of the opinion that again in the first part of this sentence after regarding this is where you state the topic and in the second part is where you state your opinion regarding global warming I'm of the opinion

that immediate government action is essential to reduce carbon emissions you can use these phrases in your topic sentence which is the first sentence in your paragraph and as you can see they do sound more advanced than I think or in my opinion and they also increase your word length a little bit as well let's see them used in action on a dingo test writing question here's the question you can pause and read it yourself with regard to the argument that changes in the modern world quickly outdate school curriculums I believe that there is truth to

this for two key reasons regarding the view that school curriculums become outdated due to the rapid changes in the modern world I'm of the opinion that this is not true for a couple of important reasons those two sentences were great examples of a topic sentence because they clearly outline your opinion and set up the structure for the rest of your paragraph if you're interested in learning about how to structure your paragraph correctly then you can check out my full production course where I teach an effective structure you can use for this writing question on the

T lingo English test and show you lots of useful grammar vocabulary and phrases along with practice questions and Sample answers for you if you're interested in taking this course there is a link below in the description it's called the ultimate production school program anyway back to these phrases now let's look at phrases you can use to transition to new ideas when you're writing your answer you will probably want to include more than one supporting argument that backs up your opinion in your topic sentence to introduce a second or third opinion we use transition words most

commonly words like additionally moreover further more these are totally fine to use of course everyone uses them all the time but I want to show show you how you can add to these phrases if you want to make your answers slightly longer furthermore it's worth noting that you can use this phrase when you want to add more information to support your main argument there's not a lot of difference than just writing furthermore but if you do want to make your answers slightly longer and probably have a bit more emphasis to your points then this is

a good phrase to use furthermore it's worth noting that Technology's role in education has made Learning Materials much more accessible to students everywhere another phrase moreover we cannot Overlook the fact that use this to add some important information to your answer this phrase does have the Nuance of something important that needs to be considered moreover we cannot Overlook the fact that smart home technologies have made everyday tasks quicker and simpler again let's see these in action in a dualingo test writing answer we'll use the same question as before the first sentence is the topic sentence

which we've already looked at now let's take a look at the supporting ideas the first supporting idea is firstly advancements in technology and science can quickly outdate the information taught in school for example students frequently learn from textbooks lacking updates in fields such as computer science furthermore it's worth noting that contemporary issues like climate change and digital literacy are not always promptly integrated into curriculums on top of making your answers longer using phrases like these can add variety to your answer and demonstrate a high level of English vocabulary which of course is on the scoring

crateria you can see right here okay next up we have an advanced technique in paragraph writing and it's called making concessions this is an advanced technique both in paragraph and essay writing making concessions means to consider and write about the alternative point of view or the opposite argument and doing this is an advanced technique because it shows that you have a good understanding of the topic and you can make a well-rounded argument just to make it clear you do not need to include a concession sentence in your paragraph on the dingo test but it is

an option for you your paragraph structure might look something like this a topic sentence supporting idea one which of course supports your topic sentence your argument then you can write a supporting idea number two using the transition phrases we just discussed or here you can write a concession sentence I'll show you how to do this in one moment and of course it is a good idea to end with a concluding sentence you do not need to follow this paragraph structure but it is a standard template a lot of people use when writing an acad memic

paragraph anyway back to making concessions here are some phrases you can use the first phrase I have for you is on the other hand some argue that you can use this to talk about the opposite opinion in a sentence on the other hand some argue that school uniforms restrict students's freedom of expression the next phrase is it's equally important to highlight the downsides of something such as it's equally important important to highlight the downsides of Technology such as privacy concerns and the risk of data theft those were two phrases you can use to introduce your

concession sentence let's see them in action in a real dingo test answer on the other hand some argue that schools foundational Knowledge and Skills like critical thinking and adaptability stay relevant despite rapid changes okay moving on to something that you should definitely do in your dualingo test writing answer and that is to give examples we all know that providing examples is essential for a solid paragraph most students I see just use the phrase for example of course that is fine but there are some other phrases you can use so let's take a look at them

now to provide a clear example an obvious example of this is this is exemplified by to illustrate this point all of these phrases can be used instead of for example and like I said they do sound more academic in my sample answer the one we've been looking at so far I actually used the phrase for example so let's change that up with one of the other phrases I just showed you to provide a clear example students frequently learn from textbooks lacking updates in subjects such as computer science last up we're going to look at some

phrases you can use to write your concluding sentence your concluding sentence should restate your topic sentence and back up your main ideas the most common phrases people use to introduce their concluding sentences are to conclude or in conclusion and of course these two phrases are totally fine you should use them if you want to but I just want to show you one more phrase you can use which is slightly longer if you need to increase your word count at the last minute given these points it's clear that as I said you should use a phrase

like this to introduce your concluding sentence restate your main idea and back up all of your points here's a sample sentence given these points it's clear that we must also think about how technology affects our environment particularly as the production of gadgets leads to more electronic waste now I'm going to show you a full answer with a topic sentence supporting idea one concession sentence a concluding sentence with regard to the argument that changes in the modern world quickly outdate school curriculums I believe that there is truth to this firstly advancements in technology and science can

quickly outdate the information taught in school to provide a clear example students frequently learn from textbooks lacking updates in subjects such as computer science on the other hand some argue that the main skills taught in schools like critical thinking stay relevant despite changes in the modern world given these points it's clear that school curriculums struggle to keep up with the fast-paced modern world highlighting a need for a more up-to-date approach to education so that's a full answer to the question using some of the phrases I taught you today the word count was 105 which is

probably a little bit high for a lot of test takers do not think that you need to write that much personally I think anywhere from 70 to 100 words is more than enough to get a good score on this test the phrases I taught you today are very useful for the read then write and the writing sample but now you should learn how to structure your answer correctly and this video will help you with that you'll learn a simple structure you you can use for the read then write and writing samples allowing you to write

as much as you can and make the test easier for you so I'll see you in this video hi friends in this video we're going to talk about 21 phrases you can use to improve your writing on the dualingo English test but quickly before we start that if you're new to this channel hi I'm teacher Luke from d.com visit our website because we have lots of tools and information to help you prepare for this dingo English test okay so the first category of phrases we're going to study today is all to do with opinions now

on the dingo English test you may be required to give your opinion about a topic on the writing question so it's important you know how to talk about your opinion clearly and academically most students would just say in my opinion which is totally fine but here are some other phrases you can use which are probably more advanced so one easy phrase you can use is from my point of view or in my view you could also say I'm inclined to believe that or my impression is that another good one is in my perspective now these

are all really useful ways to share your opinion on the dingo English test and in my point of view they are better than using in my opinion especially if you're sharing your opinion more than once you don't want to repeat yourself so practice using these ones instead let me show you some full examples from my point of view governments and local authorities should ban fast food companies from advertising TI into young people another good way to give your opinion is to talk about the opposite opinion first and then use a word like however to share

your opinion something like this some people argue that however in my perspective in a full example some people argue that children should be allowed to eat whatever they want however I'm inclined to believe that children's diets need to be closely supervised okay now let's talk about how you can develop or extend your ideas on this test it's important on this writing question not just to give your opinion and then move on instead you do want to develop and extend your idea and a good way to do this is to mention a similar Point that's similar

to your opinion so what are some phrases you can use to do that let's take a look here in addition or additionally moreover adding to my previous Point another good one is not only but also as I mentioned on the exam you want to extend your answers as much as possible because it shows the examiners that you're able to talk about all of your opinions well in English and these phrases are a great way to extend your opinions and here are some example ideas of how to use them in addition children who eat a lot

of fast food are more at risk from serious health issues another example not only is fast food unhealthy for children but it can also cause serious health issues not only but also is a great way to extend your ideas because in the not only section of the sentence you mention your previous idea and then after but also you mention your new idea on top of that it adds a lot of emphasis to your writing which is also a good thing to do another great idea to extend your answers is by adding examples and as a

teacher myself when I see my students give examples I think that's fantastic however I see a lot of the phrase for example of course that phrase is great to use once maybe twice but if you're given lots of examples in your writing then you want to use different phrases so instead of for example you can use for for instance to give a clear example or a clear example of this is you could also use to illustrate these phrases are great to use instead of for example let's look at some full sentences and then I'll talk

a bit more about them a clear example of this is heart disease since children who eat a lot of fast food are more prone to heart related health issues later in life to illustrate a recent study found that children who eat fast food on a daily basis are 15% more likely to have heart related issues when they become adults to illustrate is normally followed by a statistic or a number if you noticed in my example I said 15% that refers to the statistic I'm talking about you might also want to know that you don't have

to use accurate statistics in your exam you can just make them up like I did here I didn't know that I just wrote it off the top of my head it's probably not true but that's fine this test is a test of your English knowledge not your ability to memorize facts and figures next up we have talking about a condition a condition basically means if something happens first then something else can happen second conditions mostly start with the word if so if you know the if grammatical structures you know how to use a conditional sentence

but not all conditions start with a word if you can use other phrases as well after if probably the most common is provided that you can also use as long as and the negative condition is unless these phrases work in exactly the same way as if sentences they signal that something should happen before something else happens next let me show you what I mean provided that children eat a balanced diet having one or two fast food meals per week should not cause any health issues unless governments ban fast food companies advertising to children health issues

among the young will continue to increase and of course we should look at phrases for end in your answer the conclusion in this exam I sometimes see students write in a nutshell or find finally and these are not acceptable for a conclusion in an academic essay they are too informal the best ones to use for an academic essay are these ones here I would always play it safe and just use one of these three phrases to conclude your essay no one is going to disagree with these phrases okay now you need to practice your writing

and this is the video here you need for that I'll see you there bye hi friends teacher Luke here now one of the questions on the dingo English test that many test takers find to be very stressful is describing a photo and guess what you actually have to describe four photos in total three write about the photo and one speak about the photo which of course means that it is super important that you know how to describe a photo well in the past I have made videos covering strategies and ways of organizing your answer I've

put them Below in the video description for you however in this video we're going to look at vocabulary we're going to dive into 30 words and phrases that will help you to describe photos like a pro whether it's a photo of nature an urban scene or people these words will seriously level up your answers and of course improve your overall score because vocabulary is on the scoring criteria as you can see right here trust me this video is going to be really useful for you so let's just jump right into vocabulary number one the first

one is in the background use this when describing what's behind the main subject in a photo this picture shows a cyclist with stunning mountains in the background and what's the opposite of in the background can you guess well it is in the foreground when you want to highlight what's closest in the photo say in the foreground just like in this example an empty wheelchair is positioned in the foreground of the photo while three people are in the background easy to use but these are really useful for describing where things are located in the photo by

the way I just wanted to let you know that if you would like to download this PDF that I'm using in this video then you can head over over to vip.de ready.com and download it there and if you want to become a VIP member you'll get access to a complete course on strategies for describing a photo in this course I guide you through how you can structure your answers and share techniques that ensure you always have ideas and you know exactly what to say for any photo every week I host live study sessions and live

work workshops where you can take lessons with me ask me your questions and at the end get the dualingo test score you need so anyway head over to vip.de ready.com to get the free pdf that's in this video and then you can check out the rest of my courses and live lessons there is a link somewhere down here in the video description but anyway back to this video next up close-up use closeup to talk about photos taken from very close showing lots of detail like in this photo this is a closeup of a person making

pottery and what is the opposite of closeup well it is wide shot use wide shot to describe a photo that captures a broader view of the scene and also shows the surroundings just the opposite of close-up this is an example of a wide shot in a sentence this is a wide shot of a woman using her laptop at her desk moving on to number five it is vibrant use vibrant to describe bold Lively colors this photo shows two people dancing at a lively Festival filled with bright vibrant colors all right next up we have the

word horizon it's that line you see where the Earth or sea meets the sky just like in the background of this photo this is the horizon horizon will be a good word to use in a lot of landscape photos or photos of the ocean in a sentence the person is pointing at the Sun as it sets on the horizon okay but how about in this photo do you see that hot air balloon it is actually above the Horizon so anything flying up there just like this hot air balloon we can say it's above the Horizon

this is a good phrase to make your description sound more precise the hot air balloon is floating above the Horizon the next word I have for you is Dawn so let's talk about Dawn it's the magical moment when the first light appears in the sky this word is perfect for nature shots where the sun is just peeking Over the Horizon in the morning this photo captures a stunning mountain range at dawn with soft Light breaking over the Peaks so if your level of English is intermediate or above you probably know Dawn already but how about

this one Twilight this is the soft glow right after Sunset you can use this when describing an evening photo when the sun has set but it's not completely dark just yet just like in this image here this is an image of a bridge leading to a city taken at Twilight okay Moving on but keep in with the same theme we have scorching now if you look at this photo you can see that it is scorching hot so when the heat is Extreme your word to use is scorching in this photo there are several dead trees

in a scorching desert next up clear blue sky now I'm sure everyone who's watching this video already knows the term blue sky but to make it more descriptive you can say clear Blue Sky if the sky is cloudless and perfectly blue just like in this photo use this phrase It's not a complicated phrase but it is straightforward and effective for describing photos like this a clear blue sky stretches over a sunflower field moving on to number 12 similar to in the background you can say in the distance use this when you want to describe something

that is far away in the photo just like in this image the mountains are barely visible so use in the distance and it instantly adds depth to your description the man is looking at the mountains in the distance okay now getting a bit more specific the next one we have is tracks these are the marks left by someone or something it could be a person an animal or a vehicle here in this photo these tracks were made by a vehicle vehicle so my description goes like this tracks made by a large vehicle are visible in

the sand now check out this photo the sky is overcast which means that it's completely covered in clouds there's not a bit of Blue Sky in sight a yacht is sailing on a lake on an overcast day okay let's jump to number 15 how would you describe this road is it straight or is it winding well of of course it's winding it curves and twists a bit like a river so you can either see a straight road or a Winding Road the silver car is cruising down the winding road moving on what do you think

the season is here well of course it's winter and if you get a photo similar to this you can use the phrase a Winter's day two horses are eating hay on a chilly Winter's day the opposite of course is a summer's day more than 10 people are surfing on a warm summer's day and of course you can say a spring day or an autumn day okay on to some Urban scenes right now and the first word I have for you is Monument cities have lots of monuments like in this photo so if you don't know

exactly what the structure is you can just call it a monument that will make life a lot easier for you the monument is placed in the middle of the plaza now what if the city you're describing is filled with lights then you can say this lit up as you can see here this street is completely lit up with vibrant neon lights and of course for busy City scenes we've got the phrase in English called hustle and bustle this phrase is perfect for places filled with noise traffic and energy just like in this photo I believe

this is Tokyo just look at all the people and all the activity in a sentence this image captures the hustle and bustle of big city life but what word can you use if you want to talk about the key parts of a picture well I recommend using the verb features just like here this shot features a modern city with skyscrapers and a mountain range features is a simple verb but it will make your description stand out okay let's move on to 22 what are these two people doing well they are having a conversation and I

think these two people are quite focused on each other so the phrase we can use is engaged in conversation if you're engaged in conversation it means that you're totally absorbed just like these two people they are deep in discussion this is a good cocation you can use if you get a photo of people talking to each other in a sentence the these two people are sitting on a wooden bench and engaged in conversation but if you want to describe the people in the photo but you're not sure of their exact age you can use a

phrase like this in their 60s these guys here in this photo I think they are in their 60s meaning their age is anywhere between 60 and 69 now I might be wrong but that's just my guess three people in their 60s are working on their laptops in a classroom of course if you get people who look between 20 and 29 you say in their 20s 30 and 39 in their 30s and so on but what if you get a photo like this see that cabin we can say it is surrounded by the cozy cabin is

surrounded by tall trees and dense forest it's right in the middle of the trees and Forest it's possible you'll get a photo with some flowers flowers and if the flowers are very colorful then you can say that they are in full bloom for example the garden is filled with vibrant flowers in full bloom when a photo is filled with people or objects then you can use the collocation crowded with just like this photo of a Marketplace the marketplace is crowded with vendors and Shoppers when a road or Park PA is bordered by trees going up

and down the street you can call it a treelined street as you can see in this photo of Paris right here Paris is famous for its Treeline streets okay number 29 engrossed in work you use this when someone is fully concentrating in what they're doing you can use this for a student who's studying or just an office worker who's busy and concentrating ating on their work for example in this image I presume that she is a student so I'm going to say the student is engrossed in her work and finally we have the verb capture

this is a great word you can use for photos that represent a key moment normally this will be used to describe actions just like in this image here this image captures a small dog playfully jumping up well done guys you just come completed a full dingo English test writing course how was that was it easy or was it difficult now if you would like to study more with me then check out vip.de ready.com we have courses full of PDFs to help you study with plus you can take live lessons with me where I will teach

you strategies and of course give you some feedback on your answers lots of my students find this really helpful and a lot of students have really boosted their score because of the program offer on vip.de ready.com if you think this is interesting click the link somewhere down here and sign up well that's all from me now I recommend you watch this speaking course right here it's similar to this writing one but of course it covers all of the speaking questions on the dingo English test so I'll see you here right now