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Your host, Ben Worthington.
Hello there, IELTS students.
In this tutorial, we are covering some IELTS vocabulary related to public transportation we're going to be covering a grammar point mainly linking words which are incredibly useful or sometimes commonly called connectors and they're incredibly useful because they tie your essay together now a lot of students will just stick these in their essays and then believe that's going to boost the coherence and cohesion score.
This was so common when I started out teaching.
I think nowadays it's changed a little bit and everyone's getting wiser as to how we use these and basically they tie your essay together but I'll be giving you some model sentences using these.
We're going to look at the pros and cons of public transportation and innovations and initiatives this will be great if you're a student who struggles with ideas getting ideas for your essay then we're going to look at some topic specific collocations actually probably look at those before it makes more sense to look at them before and we'll stick them into the model sentences and then we're going to look at some speaking part three questions and very model answers that doesn't make much sense very model answers but what I'm saying is that they're higher level answers practically band 9 I doubt
anybody but a transport expert would be able to give answers of this quality so don't worry if you're not even close these just serve as kind of like a model for you to follow and throughout the whole tutorial I will be giving you little side notes and advice and just practical knowledge to help you move forward and attain that band 7, 8 or 9 that most of the listeners, most of you guys will probably be aiming for.
My name is Ben Worthington.
I'm from the UK. I came back after 20 years abroad and sometimes people say I don't sound so English it's probably less so nowadays since I'm back in England speaking with native English speakers but it used to happen a lot and I'm mentioning this because I've been abroad and I've learned a foreign language so I know the struggle and I know how to acquire a foreign language and I'm learning my second foreign language at the moment and yeah I think I mean mean from my personal experience it's always better if you've you know if you're if you're learning from someone who knows the struggle who who knows
what it's like and yeah after 12 years of teaching IELTS students I'm pretty confident I can say I know the struggle let's jump oh one last thing this tutorial is completely free I'm not charging you for it and all I ask in return turn, is if you found some value from it, if you found it useful, if you found it practical, then if you could share it with your friends, post it on social media, whatever, I'd be incredibly grateful.
It just helps us help more people.
So, let's just zoom out to get started with.
So, we're going to be talking about public transportation and specifically innovations and initiatives so what is public transportation well it's usually the buses the trains the underground all of these facilities usually provided by the government unless you're in the UK where the government sold practically all of them off and now they are a national embarrassment.
Just joking. I think the UK government sold like 90 % of it, except for London.
London's underground is still publicly owned.
It's a public company, but all the rest was just sold off.
And now it's ridiculously expensive and incredibly terrible.
Anyway, let's just jump into it.
So why are we talking about public transportation?
Well, it's one of of those common topics and it's probably one of those topics that you might never have thought about before.
And ideally, if you've got the time, you know, if you've got your exam coming up in three months, you can prepare for this topic by just doing some Google searches, reading some articles and getting stuck into it, watching some YouTube videos and whatnot.
However, a lot of students are not in that situation.
They don't have that luxury.
So this is like a crash course in public transportation and it's all geared around IELTS and IELTS writing task two we're going to give you the vocabulary we're going to help you with a grammar point and we're going to give you some of the model sentences and then even use this topic in the speaking it's a very typical topic of my mind goes blank when students know about this find out about this or face this is the better expression.
So when we're talking about public transportation we're talking about basically as I just said the buses, the trains, the underground and these are necessary for sustainable and efficient cities.
And this is another reason why I wanted to cover this topic because it overlaps very conveniently into climate change.
So when you're thinking about solutions for climate change or whatever we could talk about public transportation initiatives and and also i will share a very powerful technique um when to come up with ideas and it's like your backup method and if you learn this backup method you learn all the vocabulary around it then it's basically your jolly joker as my wife says it's your jolly joke it can get you out of a lot of sticky situations so what's the grammar point well as I said before we're looking at connectors or linking words and these help when you want to add additional points and even when you
want to compare some common words would be moreover furthermore similarly likewise and these words just help you build up your arguments in your body paragraph let's have a look at some of these in the natural environment which is a sentence so integrated transport networks are essential for modern cities and sustainable transport models further enhance urban life quality so here we said we could even even said more over sustainable transport models are in this case we used they further enhance urban life quality smart transit systems have been developed to reduce delays similarly traffic management
solutions help to prevent gridlock during peak hours there we go what traffic management solutions come to mind and the first one for me here would be the congestion charge in London basically it's a way for the government to get more money but so what they did is typical of the UK government they slap a tax on whatever they want less of so they put this tax on vehicles and now if you want to travel in London between certain hours you've got to pay an extra fee if you're going around the city center and the idea is and it actually works it keeps cars out of the the city centre and only those desperate
enough to pay the charge will actually go in the centre and obviously it reduces the amount of traffic however when I was in London a few months ago it didn't I couldn't see any different but that's another that's another story next sentence furthermore public mobility services improve the overall accessibility of cities while While eco -friendly transportation options contribute to environmental preservation.
I should have said this a few minutes ago, but to get the full value from this tutorial, scribble down, write down some of these collocations that you're hearing.
Doing this makes it far more likely you're going to remember them, which makes it far more likely that you're going to use them, which makes it more likely that you will figure out how to use them in the correct context and the correct grammatical structures next sentence moreover the expansion of high -capacity transport transit routes facilitates quicker commutes and urban congestion relief follows as a natural result result that's a great center sentence the reason why I like this sentence is because we've used facilitates as a verb and it just moves the sentence along rather than saying the traditional
way the standard or like maybe the band six level way which would be and this then enables quicker commutes are and then quicker commutes can happen or something a little bit more basic but if we use the verb moves the sentence along and it's just easier to read and easier not easier to write but easier to read and easier for the examiner to award your points.
Similarly green urban spaces are integrated into transit planning enhancing the aesthetic and ecological aspects of urban areas.
Great I would actually hedge that I'd say similarly in most cases green urban spaces are usually integrated into transit planning hedging is a key skill I'll probably release another tutorial about hedging and but basically we're just avoiding making sweeping generalizations by adding more adding phrases like could are most likely most often next sentence despite the benefits the high costs of Smart Transit systems can be prohibitive however the long -term savings in environmental and health costs are considerable as a fantastic sentence because we've we've looked at both sides there's actually
a semicolon in there as well and also it's my favorite sort of like go -to argument and which is basically explaining the costs or the cost side so we can use costs for should governments provide education for for free higher education for free well there's a huge cost there you know should governments jail people or focus on rehabilitation well there's probably a cost argument there as well which is cheap at jails or rehabilitation so by using the cost arguments and getting to grips with the cost argument then we can reuse that vocabulary for multiple arguments whereas transport vocabulary obviously
can only be used for a transport essay or maybe even a climate change essay pollution essay as well so it is slightly more versatile next sentence public transit accessibility is prioritized in city planning moreover efforts are made to ensure that these services are affordable to all residents what's the problem with that sentence let me say it again public transit accessibility is prioritized in city planning moreover efforts are made to ensure that these services are affordable to all residents well we need to hedge it let's hedge it Public transit accessibility is often prioritised in city
planning. Moreover, efforts are usually made to ensure that these services are affordable to all residents.
There we go. Can you see what I did there?
Transformed it, introduced that element of uncertainty to avoid a sweeping generalisation.
Next sentence. While integrated transport networks are advantageous, They require extensive coordination and funding, which can be challenging for local governments.
Next sentence. Eco -friendly transportation initiatives are often supported by public policy.
Furthermore, these initiatives encourage broader participation in sustainable living practices.
There we go. That would definitely need to be further developed because it's not exactly clear.
Eco -friendly transportation initiatives encourage broader participation in sustainable living practices because, why?
Why? Why? Develop it further.
You could not leave that sentence as it is.
let's have a look at the pros and the cons this will be great for the students who suffer from the lack of ideas so the advantages basically of public transportation is that it can one reduce urban traffic congestion and then i'm going to just develop this one and then then this would probably lead to a to lower environmental pollution super next sentence the next advantage improves accessibility to jobs and services because a wider percentage The percentage of the population now would usually find it easier to get into the city if there is a bus route rather than having to rely on a taxi or a private
car which might be economically prohibitive for a lot of city citizens.
It increases safety in transportation through technological advances.
answers this is because most transit systems most modern transport systems have built in safety devices that help reduce traffic that help reduce accidents next sentence it enhances the quality of life by reducing travel time and possibly even increasing air quality this is due to the fact that can you see what i'm trying to do here and i'm doing it now i don't usually develop most of the arguments that i give you but i'm doing it because uh the other day i had a private class and the student kept coming up with reasons but really didn't develop them so it's like fresh in my mind this skill set
of developing and in most cases we can develop the argument by just saying this is because and then completing explaining and also and what i I was telling my student was after each sort of like position or argument ask yourself why why does this happen why and then putting it in a sentence of this is because what are the the drawbacks what are the disadvantages what are the cons of public transportation initiatives well there's a high cost of development and maintenance as I just mentioned usually disruptions during construction phases and if you want to dive into this a little bit further you
can just put HS2 UK and you'll get a barrage of articles about how the UK government just keeps on flip -flopping with decisions and making a mess of it anyway let's move on But potential for underutilization if not properly planned.
For some reason, Spain comes to mind here because they were building a lot of infrastructure projects and tiny little towns had trams in them, which I thought was a complete waste of money and definitely a candidate for being underutilized.
Another disadvantage, they can be inefficient in low -density areas.
that's exactly what I just said but in a more academic fashion a risk of technological obsolescence with rapid advances that's interesting no example comes to mind so if I did think of this idea this is what we do with our students on the course on the writing course we have the sentence guide it's like you might have an idea but if it's difficult to explain if it's difficult to develop ditch that idea move on to one that's easier to explain now let me just explain why the risk of technological obsolescence with rapid advances in technology might be a drawback from investing in a train or a bus
service we could say that self -driving cars are around the corner one with it self -driving taxis we could even say that private air travel is it could make train or high -speed long distance train infrastructure redundant in the future and the reason why I don't like the argument is because it's a stretch it's a stretch we've got to sort of like put these conditions in place these hypothetical conditions to justify our argument and the chances that long -distance trains for example become redundant because of technological technological advances in air travel are quite slim at least I believe until
for the next 20 years we'll see message me in 20 years if I'm wrong next one it may lead to gentrification near transit hubs again that's quite a complicated one to explain what does gentrification mean well it means when a down uh down scale area you know like a part of town that's been neglected and it's all derelict and then they put a transport hub there now everybody wants to live there and the price of living goes up the price of housing goes up and everything becomes more expensive okay and again i'm not so keen on that argument it takes a lot to explain but it is worthwhile knowing and it's
a useful verb as well to gentrify next drawback it requires requires significant governmental planning and coordination.
It can be a long -term financial burden on public funds.
I love that argument.
You instantly get it, you know.
The government sets up this train system and now it has to carry on funding it year after year after year, and this is a long -term financial burden.
Now I've covered the topic specific vocabulary collocations in those sentences let me just blast through them again to help you remember them smart transit systems integrate integrated transport networks green urban spaces traffic management solutions public money mobility services sustainable transport models urban congestion relief eco -friendly transportation and high -capacity transport transit routes sorry let's go Go to the speaking Why is it important to integrate green spaces into urban planning?
Integrating green spaces into urban planning not only enhances the city's beauty but also improves residents health.
Moreover, such spaces provide necessary ecological benefits like air purification and even temperature regulation and with the speaking if you struggle for long answers try the technique that I mentioned before this is because or for example and this will just extend your answer a little bit more what I like about this answer is let's just go back to the question why is it important to integrate green spaces into urban planning here the student by starting with integrating integrating green spaces into urban planning.
They just directly reflected the question.
So we start off and the first five or six words more or less come from the question.
This is a useful technique to employ in your exam because it makes sure that you're staying on topic.
And moreover, this student did it by slightly modifying and he started with the gerund integrating green spaces.
Another way to start off would be, well, I believe it's crucial to integrate green spaces into urban planning because XYZ.
Next question, should cities invest more in high capacity transit routes?
Oh yes, absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt.
Cities should definitely invest in high capacity transit routes as they efficiently manage large volumes of passengers and this reduces traffic congestion.
Furthermore, these investments support sustainable urban development.
Wow. If you can speak at this level in the exam, you're getting a band nine.
So, don't worry. If you're a bit worried by the quality of these answers, these were pre -prepared in advance by a native speaker and it's you don't have to worry about these okay but it's a good sort of like North Star to aim for and moreover you're hearing some of the linking words that I mentioned earlier and the collocations and all together in a natural environment and spoken in a natural way way.
What are the challenges of implementing Smart Transit systems?
Hopefully you�re mind goes straight now to the cost argument I talk about a lot.
The challenge here is that it�s very expensive to build a train and get trains running.
That�s the answer, but this is how it should be delivered.
implementing smart transit systems involves high costs and complex technology integration moreover ensuring these systems remain up to date with technological advancements is continually challenging and probably rather expensive next question final question how have public transportation innovations changed in the last decade now if you're getting a question like this the examiner is inviting you to use your language of comparison because it says how have they changed in the last decade well we want to talk about the beginning a few decades ago a decade ago sorry and then talk about the present
day and we can use different tenses we could use the present perfect for this which is perfect for this let's go in the last decade public transportation has seen significant advancements particularly in the adoption of smart transit systems these innovations have made public transport more efficient and user -friendly another way probably a more natural way would be to say well in the last decade I think the trains were were quite polluting because a lot of them used diesel whereas nowadays most of the trains especially in my city are all electrically powered so I guess the change has been that they're
more environmentally better for the climate and a little bit cleaner which reduces produces probably noise pollution and air pollution at the same time.
There we go. That's kind of like a more natural answer.
We haven't had the luxury to prepare.
Now, if you want the full tutorial, which I recommend you do, just put into Google IELTS podcast .com public transportation.
You'll be able to see all the vocabulary, all the model sentences.
And And if you combine that with your notes, again, we're going back to this repetition, this idea of repetition, reusing the vocabulary, making it your own so that when you do use it, it sounds more natural.
That's it from me today.
I'm wishing you a beautiful day.
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