All the stance phrases from this chapter. Test yourself, and decide which ones you will not use in the exam.
Preview · progress not saved — Chapter 1 is free
Five moves, one test that applies to all of them, and the two things this chapter is honest about.
All thirty items, mixed. Sort them back into the five moves — and notice which move each one belongs to rather than what it means.
Sort each item into the correct category
Twelve judgements. In half of them the right answer is to use no device at all — which is the chapter's argument, not a trick.
Twelve situations. In each, choose what a Band 8 writer would actually do.
In six of the twelve the correct answer is the plain option — no adverb, plain attribution, although, notably, or no conclusion frame at all.
That is not a trick and it is not caution. An unearned device costs you more than silence, because a reader notices that you gestured at an argument you did not make. This chapter is not passed by using every item in it.
You are opening a body paragraph. Your first sentence reports that a scheme was abandoned after eighteen months. Nothing has come before it.
A full argument with ten gaps drawn from all five sprints. The last four are answerable only from the body above them.
The city describes the scheme as a pedestrianisation and reports that it consulted local businesses. Eleven of the twelve businesses it consulted trade outside the zone, and the twelfth withdrew before submitting. The consultation therefore tells us less about local opinion than the city suggests.
, the only traders asked were the ones with least to lose.
is trade, and it is a real one: footfall in comparable zones fell by nine per cent in the first year.
, nine per cent is a substantial loss and no rewording makes it smaller. It is also a first-year figure, and in four of the five schemes with second-year data, footfall recovered to above its starting level. the loss was permanent; the only dataset that runs past twelve months says the opposite.
the small number of schemes involved, the direction is consistent across all five.
that trade does not matter. A scheme that empties a street of shops has failed on its own terms, whatever it does for air quality.
, all four of the schemes that recovered were in cities that offered a first-year rate holiday, and neither of the two that did not recover was.
is that the argument was never about pedestrianisation. It is about the twelve months between the loss and the recovery, and about who can survive them.
is therefore cash flow rather than footfall: the businesses that closed were the ones without twelve months of reserves.
A full body paragraph using at most four chapter items. The ceiling is the assessment.
Prompt
In some countries, universities are funded almost entirely by the state; in others, students pay most of the cost themselves. Which approach is better for society?
Take a side. Then write ONE body paragraph, 180–250 words.
The constraint is a ceiling, and the ceiling is the assessment: at most FOUR items from this chapter. Four is not a target. Two well-earned items beat four unearned ones, and a paragraph using none of them can be a Band 8 paragraph.
What each item you use will be checked against:
Two separate reports come back. One names the band your lexis is sitting at against the Lexical Resource descriptors. The other reports, item by item, whether each device was used for precision or for display — and that second report is the one worth reading.
You may invent plausible detail about universities, funding systems or graduate outcomes. Do not present invented figures as published research.
180–250 words. At most four chapter items.
"None" is a legitimate and sometimes the best answer.
This is the question the whole tier has been building towards.
Name the ones you are leaving behind. Deciding not to use a phrase is the skill this tier was built for.