Life Expectancy - Part 1

So let’s take a look at this question a new question for today.

In the developed world average life expectancy is increasing.

What problems will this cause for individuals and society suggests some measures that could be taken to reduce the impact of aging populations.

So usual process identify the question type.

What are we looking at here.

We’re looking at a situation question specifically a problem and solution kind of situation most common one that comes up.

So we’re just going to dive into our plan here problem and the solution is say and what do we do next.

Hopefully at this point you should already know we’re going to highlight the key words.

So what have we got here.

A couple of important words in this one shouldn’t rush over anything here.

We’ll take our time.

In the developed world I do think that’s kind of important.

It’s more for the sake of accuracy but I think if we at least touch on this.

So this is what I would deem a secondary key word rather than a primary key word.

So we got to actually mark that in green.

You can’t really do that in the exam.

But if you can do it in some sort of way maybe like a dotted underline rather than a full on the line and might just give you that idea.

But the important aspects here.

Life expectancy is increasing is really the main topic of the task and we’re thinking about those in the context of individuals

and society and that fairly self-explanatory but of course we are looking here at problems and measures that can be taken to reduce the impact and notice that they’re not really asking us to solve the problem.

We’re not making a go away but we’re minimizing the problem making it smaller.

We’re managing it I suppose.

So we have a few key words there.

Now there is one other key word here that’s really easy to miss because it is not an obvious term like like a noun or a specific verb or something like that.

It’s more related to the grammar.

And it indicates to us a particular time that we are to discuss.

I wonder if you can find it here.

Hopefully you’ve landed on this will we’ll I’m actually going to mark that in a different color rather than just highlight it because although it’s not really a key word in terms of the theme we need to keep in mind as we respond to the task regardless because it will dictate the grammar if not the vocabulary that we use as we respond to this task.

And it may actually dictate some of the vocabulary that we use as well.

We need to make sure that we are not discussing only at least the present but we’re really looking at this in terms of the future.

OK.

So watch out for words like will when you are analyzing your task.

OK.

Now let’s think about a plan here.

And of course as usual we want to have a clear theme for each of our body paragraphs.

Sometimes we may just pick out one problem.

The body paragraph one a different problem for paragraph two if you’re a member from the or you’ve watched the video calls for task to you know that I recommend that in a problem and solution essay we look at one problem and one solution to that problem in each paragraph instead of looking at all the problems in one paragraph no solutions in the other paragraph it’s just difficult to tie those ideas together in a cohesive way much easier to do problem and solution different problem and solution.

OK.

I wonder can you have a look at those key words again and see if there is an opportunity in there for us to split our body paragraphs into two themes that reflect the requirements of the task.

Have a look.

Take a moment see if you can find two themes.

Hopefully you will have seen individuals and society.

So this task is actually made it easier for us to differentiate our body paragraphs.

Not all tasks will give you that opportunity and you have to create that opportunity for yourself.

But do try to notice when those opportunities are made available to you.

They show a really nice understanding of the task so thus improving task response task achievement while also improving coherence and cohesion by giving clear central themes to each of the body paragraphs.

OK so first of all we’re going to look at problems for individuals.

So we’re going to look at a problem which we call topic or support sentence that may be an example and then two sentences about the solution.

The solution itself and then either an explanation for how that solution would work or more likely a result of the solution.

How does the solution help to reduce the impact of the problem.

Basically you can’t just present a solution and say that’s it you need to explain how that is going to improve the situation.

OK.

Same down here.

T as we saw also of course we can change this as we go on the fly but by creating these constraints they actually help to improve our creativity and our ideas.

I think people find it quite difficult to think of ideas when there are no constraints when there are limitless options.

So by limiting options we give ourselves more of a focus.

That’s why I like to put these letters in before hand be flexible.

But it’s good to have them there to begin with.

So let’s first of all think about a problem for individuals what might be one of the problems that will occur for individuals in an age where everybody’s living much longer.

So one of the problems I think is probably going to be the money aspect the financial aspect on an individual level the cost of living is a nice way to put it.

So we’re just right here.

See.

Well we understand that as a collocation cost of living the cost of living is going to be a problem.

Why is that going to be a problem.

Explain.

Let’s support it.

Well that’s probably because once you reach that particular age you usually retire.

And once you retire you are reliant on the work that you’ve done in the past.

And the government help to give you the financial support to survive.

So even more of life is spent in retirement then we may not have the financial resources to cover that longer life.

We wouldn’t have worked long enough who wouldn’t have saved enough so more time in retirement.

We haven’t prepared ourselves to save enough money for that length of life let’s say.

So and a consequence of that is that we need to depend on families perhaps as well and that could be quite a burden on familial relationships.

An example of them for example we’re going to ask the reader to imagine something in their mind by implementing the use of a relative clause to say a man who does this or a man who does that could be a woman as well as really up to you but you say a man who starts work at a particular time.

We want to make this a very visual easy to envision example examples that look examples are created in this way tend to be a lot more powerful.

So works at 20 you say times 60 to worry about the propositions Adam and later retire 60 lives to 100.

You can see that is a big problem.

So you’re only working for 40 years but you’re living for 40 years so only you know two fifths of the life is spent making money that’s going to be a big big problem really what might be the solution to this issue.

Well although it’s not a very nice solution that’s not really what we’re looking at when it comes to IELTS.

We don’t have to think about pleasing everybody.

We just need to make a logical assessment here in terms of the solution.

So if the problem is that people are retiring at a particular age and they don’t have enough money once they reach that retirement and if a good portion of their life is spent in retirement than what we could do is we could shrink the length of retirement and extend the length that people work for.

In other words increase age over time so don’t allow people to retire and take their government pensions until they reach a particular age.

Not a very popular solution but it is one that would address this issue.

It would reduce that impact.

OK.

Now what would be the result of this.

Well the results of this would be that people will have more money when they reach retirement and the retirement itself would actually be of a shorter length.

So it would cover this issue.

We could say that people will be better prepared to cover those costs.

So I’m better prepared to actually do something like that.

We’ll consider what we’re going to say when we get that OK type 2 that makes sense.

We can now move on to the idea of society.

And notice here we are looking at we are looking at this on the level of individuals and not looking at it as a society as a group of people.

That’s why in that example we say we’re going to say man who.

Not if people work.

We can say that we’re looking at it on an individual level down here Kontrol is moving to a collective level we’re looking at society.

One of the problems with society is actually sort of related because it’s related to work but it’s not related to money.

It is more of a collective idea.

This is the idea of employment particularly if we implement the idea of raising the retirement age which was what we suggested as it would just put the problem down unemployment if we implement this problem here.

And you know your retirement then fewer jobs are going to be available for young people.

So there will be decreased turnover.

We need to have young people coming into work.

So retirement age idea will just refer back to it.

Basically this is why it would happen a young point because of the retirement age increasing.

If we implement that yada yada.

OK we’ll think about it when we get that example.

I don’t think this lends itself well to an example.

I mean we could do but it would probably be looking at an individual level again we could say a young man who does this but then it sounds quite individual.

So I’m going to come away from the example and instead I’m going to look at this in terms of results.

What would be the results of this.

Well the results of more or more people in work and fewer fewer jobs going around will be simply that particularly young people because I’m looking at that in the plural here a subsection of society young people who will struggle to find because it so young people struggle to work something like that.

OK now we’ll come to the solution and the solution.

What could we do.

Well we can’t do this.

I mean this is making the problem worse from a different perspective of what we could do is ask the government to create new jobs.

Now how do we create new jobs you don’t create the math thing here what you need to do is you usually invest in new markets and new technologies and new areas.

So we asked the government to invest new technologies now technology is almost always an uncountable.

Now we don’t usually refer to it in the plural but we can in this case here do a little bit more research on this.

If you are interested but if you’re in the exam and unless you’ve got this exact scenario coming up if you’re unsure it’s probably going to be in the uncountable singular form.

So keep that in mind if you are looking at the topic of technology or it comes up in your exams.

Most of the time not but in this case what we’re looking at different markets and different types of technology I suppose then we can look at it in the plural.

So invest in new technologies.

Now when we invest in new technologies as I said new jobs tend to be new jobs so investment leads to new jobs.

STEPHEN RYAN

And what you might notice is that we could actually turn our last section into a conditional sentence if the government invest in new technologies.

This will create more new jobs and address the issue of unemployment or something like that anyway.

There’s our plan so we can now move away from the plan and consider how we might open up our Essec OK.

A good way to get started into that general statement because it’s quite tricky to go from a white page and start making your mark a good thing to do is to ask yourself a question.

This question might be what would everybody agree on if it was an opinion question or a discussion opinion question.

Then you can write something like Well there is no doubt.

There is no denying that.

So it is clear that something everybody agrees on.

Another question you can ask is Why am I being asked this.

This is an important issue.

Why is this issue important.

What is important about it.

And when you ask a question like that you can usually start if you’ve got a good answer.

You can start your essay by saying it is important to consider and then maybe a question word.

It is important to consider why it is important to consider when who whether how that sort of thing there.

OK.

So I think we can try that here.

It is important to consider what kind of question what do you think would follow this if we look at the task here and developed world average life expectancies increasing What will this cause for individuals and society.

I think if we go something like how I think how is probably going to be most appropriate one.

What problems with this cause how will it affect.

That’s another way of saying isn’t it.

So it’s important to consider how and the mood just referenced this here the developed worlds you could sort of say the industrialized world or the first world or that sort of thing.

I’m just going to use the same expression.

I don’t think any one any ideas in my head at the moment are good enough to paraphrase sir.

But I will make it poss.

how the developed world’s increasing life expectancy.

I notice that there is a bit of repetition here because maybe there is a bit too much repetition here despite the change of order.

What’s another word for increasing maybe one being are rising.

How the world how the developed world rising life expectancy will.

As I said effect

and then we’ll come straight in to this will affect both.

So I’m going to change the order again here.

Society.

And actually I’m going to look at this from a plural perspective.

So we’re looking at it globally not just individual societies.

So in effect by society and what’s another word for individuals particularly individuals within our society and take citizens and in fact the societies possess the citizens can do here even out of that so it is important to consider how the developed world is rising life expectancy will affect both societies and their citizens.

Simply put not just a single sentence.

Now when it comes to problem and solution essays we can usually get away with just writing two sentences for the introduction.

One is the general statement.

And that too is a plan.

No opinions because we’re not really being asked about an opinion here.

Do you think it’s good or bad we’re just being asked for problems and solutions.

So I would just say this as I say we’ll discuss explore analyze any of these verbs are good.

We’ll discuss some of the problems which might rise again we may be able to be a little bit better with paraphrasing a different word for problems because we’ve got problems there with issues.

There’s not a big deal that says they will discuss some of the issues which might arise as a result of this.

Now if you see something changing over time what is that called a change over time.

Think about it in terms of task one graphs with a trend.

So we use this word trend.

I say What are some of the issues which might arise as a result of this trend and some way these two different word for reduce the impact.

I use the verb minimize earlier.

That’s a nice one.

Another nice one is mitigate.

Again we’re not abolishing when all RADICH hating these problems but we’re managing them we’re making them smaller.

So to mitigate the the fact if I’ve returned back to that idea here problems so we ended up needing to use the word problem anyway.

I’m going to add one more verb in here because I don’t really like the idea of discuss following on all of the rest of this sentence.

I want to throw in an extra verb here just to break it up a little bit also because I think solutions or ways to solve a problem although there are those kind of nouns they need a separate verb a different verb to discuss or explore around analyze and I think we’ll go with something like propose proposes good suggest is what we’ve got in the task.

So I want to use that one really.

Let’s have a look at that again.

It is important to consider how the developed world rising life expectancy will affect both societies and their citizens.

This essay will discuss some of the issues which might arise as a result of this trend and proposes some ways to mitigate these problems.

Looks good to me.