So I just did the first academic discussion task from ETS.
Here's a picture of my essay:
You can see that I wrote 130 words in a little over five minutes. Here is a picture of the score:
And I got 5.0. So what does my experience suggest?
- ETS is obviously using e-rater or some other AI for scoring. It took about 10 seconds to score the essay.
- I did mention both students (Kelly and Claire) in my answer. Not sure if this is necessary for a top score.
- On re-reading my essay, I realize that it's not grammatically perfect. The 3rd sentence should contain "there are." The final sentence of the first paragraph should include "in" the countryside.
- The organizing strategy was to summarize Claire and Kelly's points, but I also tried to "add to the discussion" with personal details (I live in Tokyo, which is dealing with the same problem)
- I also tried to "add to the discussion" by adding to Kelly's points (concerts, sporting events, transportation).
- After summarizing and "adding the the discussion" in paragraph one, I directly answered the question with my own opinion in paragraph two. The only new detail in paragraph two is "creating jobs outside agriculture." All the other paragraph two details are rooted in paragraph one.
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