This content provides a detailed guide on structuring and writing a four-paragraph essay, specifically tailored for the KO test, emphasizing the introduction, body paragraphs with supporting details, and a concluding summary.
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[Music]
hello and welcome back to our ko
language series
today we're going to continue working on
our writing skills we're focusing on the
essay structure so over the last couple
of episodes we've looked at gathering
information from some source material
and putting that information together
and usable way to write an essay
structure this will be a continuation
then of last week's episode so if you
haven't already seen our previous
episode now would be a great time to
pause this video go back and watch it
and catch up with us when you're ready
so let's get started by reminding
ourselves what an essay is all about an
essay does follow a very specific
structure and you're looking right now
at the correct essay structure this is a
four paragraph essay this is actually a
submission on a pascal test as a matter
of fact in part four on ko you will be
asked to write a long piece of writing
and that's what an essay is all about so
in this case your first paragraph will
always be your introduction in any essay
you write it's going to first identify
or introduce the main topic that you're
writing about and then it's also going
to answer the question on the test that
you're trying to address
this would be called your thesis
statement where you provide that answer
and that statement in that first
paragraph is going to let the reader
know what the rest of the essay will be
all about those two middle paragraphs
you see right here we refer to them as
the body paragraphs of any essay this is
where all of these specific details will
come from now on the ko test when you
write the long piece of writing you will
be required to use information from both
the long reading and the long listening
passages so again that's where you're
pulling details from in order to write
the two middle paragraphs
the more specific your support is the
better your score will be on that area
for the kl test itself
that last paragraph right at the bottom
is your conclusion and every essay you
write must have a concluding paragraph
its purpose is to summarize all the main
points that you have discussed
throughout the entire essay and
sometimes it's a place for you to offer
up a next step or a reflection on what
perhaps might happen next we'll look at
this structure again in more detail now
remember an essay that you write might
be longer than four paragraphs
you're always going to have that
introduction and the conclusion but you
might have three or even four middle
paragraphs this one only has two and i
think on the kl test when you write this
long piece of writing you've only got 35
minutes to put together the entire essay
so i think most of us will probably have
time to write the two middle paragraphs
if you're a very practiced and fast
writer you might have time for a third
one it's really up to you but on the kl
test itself you must finish the essay in
35 minutes time
so again last week we looked at how to
gather information from the source
material itself and we spent that
episode putting together this outline
we wanted to answer the question on the
test first to clearly identify our
thesis and then again we wanted to look at
at
finding enough supporting details to
offer up these two body paragraphs now
every single paragraph that we write
about in the essay has to discuss only
one main point that's really really
important and we'll come back to that
point again very soon here as we begin
writing again our conclusion is well we
don't have to worry about too much in
our in our outline process but once
we've written the first three paragraphs
here we'll be in a position then to
summarize our main points
so just again to remind ourselves this
is the exact same question we have been
working on over the past several
episodes now so it should be somewhat
familiar but i will read it out loud
just to jog our own memories today
it says based on the reading passage how
have changes to sports equipment
improved performance at the olympic games
games
so again remember on the real kale test
you must use information from the
reading and listening passages
for today's episode in order to simplify
things in a shorter amount of time we
are only going to focus on the reading passage
passage
okay but again the structure of the
essay will be the same regardless of how
many sources you have but i did want to
make that distinction again on the real
test use reading and listening but in
this practice episode we are just going
to use the reading episode it makes our
job a little bit easier as we're
learning how to write an essay in the
first place
the other slight difference here that
we're doing in practice is that this
question that we're answering is a
comprehension question on the real kale
test you'll have a question that will
ask you to select a position and support
it that way but again in order to
simplify things down and really hone our
essay writing skills and understand how
it should be structured we're going to
use this comprehension question instead
but the structures that we learned today
will be applied to absolutely any essay
you write whether it's on the kl test or
otherwise so let's review i guess the
outline then that we did create in the
last episode so you'll see the same
question right at the top of the screen
to keep us all on track
in that introductory paragraph space we
took the time in last week's episode to
answer the question and give our very
detailed thesis statement so i'm going
to read out loud right now this
introductory paragraph statement and
this is what we're going to actually be
writing today we're going to put this
idea into paragraph form so the idea
that we will be focusing on is
technological advancements to sporting
equipment have allowed olympic athletes
to achieve faster results and
demonstrate more competitive performances
performances
okay so again we've answered that
question up top
we are focusing strictly on innovative
equipment and how it's improved athletic
performance at the olympics
but we worked hard last week to look at
that reading passage and identify two
specific ways in which athletic
performance has improved so we came up
with the idea of achieving faster
results so again this innovative
equipment is allowing athletes to finish
faster in their races now and also they
can demonstrate more competitive
performances this way too
so innovative equipment pushes them to
demonstrate a higher level performance
is really what we're arguing
and again in last week's episode we
looked at the structure so we've got
these two guiding ideas here in the
introduction in yellow achieving faster
results that's our first focus so that's
going to be the content of the first
body paragraph
all of the three examples here that we
pulled right from the reading source
last time these all demonstrate how this
advanced equipment is allowing athletes
to finish faster at the olympics
the second guiding idea in green in the
introduction there is about the
competitive performances
so because it's a brand new idea it's
completely different than faster times
we have to start a new paragraph
so demonstrating competitive
performances then becomes the topic of
this second body paragraph and those
three specific examples that you see
there came again right out of that
reading passage to show how this
innovation can help athletes push their
performance to the next level again
you'll notice the order is very well
organized so because we introduced
faster times first in the introduction
we're going to address faster times
first in the middle of the essay
likewise the competitive performances
comes second in the introduction so
that's why it's the second body
paragraph and so on okay so that's the
basic structure
so what i'd like to do now again is
we're going to take this this outline
and put it into paragraph form so this
is the the next step your draft process
if you will on the kl test
so i'm going to take that introductory
statement up top and i'm going to place
it right at the bottom of the writing
space here this is our thesis and we're
going to end our first paragraph our
introduction with this exact idea so it
will lead into all the details to follow
but we have to write a couple of
sentences first in order to introduce
the topic so looking back at our question
question remember
remember
the question is asking us first to focus
on sports equipment
specifically the changes too
and also has to do with the olympic
games so before we even get talking
about innovations to equipment i think
it would be wise just to introduce this
notion of sports and olympics
competitive sports
play a vital role across the globe and
are characterized by a spirit of
competition and fair play among athletes
so that one sentence again is
introducing the reader to this idea of sports
sports
i now want to say something about the
olympics so i'll add a second sentence
to do that
so we can say the olympic games
are perhaps the most widely viewed
sporting event by global audiences
particularly because the games celebrate
the top achievements by the world's
strongest athletes
so that's a very fine introduction again
encompassing both the idea of sports and
the olympics it's an overview to the
topic of the question itself it doesn't
answer the question but it's setting up
the background context so that the
reader understands what's about to come
next as we further our discussion
so i suppose the next thing we really
need to do is is get right down to the
meat of the question which is asking us
to consider how these changes have
improved the sports
we've already got our thesis statement
at the bottom
so it's a matter of adding in a sentence
to get from that top introduction to the
thesis at the bottom so let's say
something about how
how
equipment and the games have evolved we
are talking about the olympics um after all
all
and when we looked at the reading
passage it actually told us that the
olympics began about 2500 years ago so
we can pull that detail now and it makes
for a very interesting statement to
include in the introduction we can say
here that the winning attitudes of
athletes competing in the games may be
the same now as they were 2500 years in
the past that the science and technology
of sports have undergone dramatic
changes so there's that concept of change
change
and we're pretty much ready to connect
right on to that thesis let's just add
in one transition
if we say this it all makes sense so in fact
fact
technological advancements to sporting
equipment have allowed olympic athletes
to achieve faster results and
demonstrate more competitive
performances than ever before
so that's our introduction again step by
step we looked at introducing the main
topic sports and the olympics we then
looked at getting the idea across about
how the olympics have changed over the
years and then we specified that it's
the changes to this equipment that are
allowing athletes today to race faster
and in a more competitive way but the
higher skill set is really what we're saying
saying
so looking back at our interior our
outline rather we can say effectively
that that introductory paragraph has
been finished i think we're we can say
we're satisfied with it let's move on
again on the test you don't have an hour
just to write your introduction you have
to keep it quick so keep an eye on your
time make sure you've got your
topic introduced your thesis done and
get right into the middle paragraphs so
starting with body paragraph one this is
the paragraph that talks all about the
fast times so let's throw those ideas
from the line at the top here to keep us
all on track
so the very first thing we must do
before we start citing these three examples
examples
is we have to introduce the main topic
of this one paragraph so remember how
one paragraph discusses one main idea
so let's write a topic sentence that
introduces how this advanced equipment
allows athletes to race faster that's
really what we're saying here so let's
try something like this
innovations in equipment design have
allowed modern olympic athletes to
achieve faster results throughout competition
competition
so that introduces the concept of faster
times really well done there i think
so let's maybe underline our topic just
to keep us all on track so absolutely
everything we talk about in this
paragraph has to connect back to the
idea of fast times
if the example is not about going faster
it does not belong in this paragraph all
of your ideas have to be on topic which
is about speed that's the focus so we
already have our three examples again we
pulled these out of the reading source
last episode our first example we
learned that bikes now use carbon fiber technology
technology
which makes these bikes really really
lightweight they're under four pounds
now so you can imagine an athlete that's
pedaling along on a lightweight bicycle
of course is going to be able to travel
faster so this is the idea that we want
to include so let's say something about
bikes or cyclists here maybe this would work
work
so cyclists for example
notice our transition for example
are crossing finish lines in record
times due in large part to new carbon
fiber technology that is used to create
lightweight bicycles
since each bicycle now weighs under four pounds
pounds
it can be ridden faster than at any time
in the past
so if you notice how we've sighted first
off the equipment we identified the bike
we showed how it was advanced it's using
this carbon fiber technology
and we connected that back to our topic
so this advancement then lets the
athletes go faster so that
example then has been completed
successfully i would say and we're ready
now to add in the second example
this one's all about arrows who that
also use carbon fiber technology and we
read in the reading passage that again
it allows the arrows to leave the bow
much faster now i guess than ever before
so we need to say something about arrows
or archery
so this sentence might work we have
carbon fibers are also used to coat the
modern glass and foam arrows used by archers
archers
these materials increase the speed of
each shot which sometimes exceeds 240
kilometers per hour
okay so again look at how we've
connected the notion of speed i didn't
want to use the word faster again
because i've already used it twice now
so we said increase the speed which
means the same thing and that example of
240 kilometers per hour again we pulled
that right out of the reading source so
we're trying to be as specific as
possible to really emphasize how fast
these athletes can can compete now due
to the innovative equipment
all right so i think i think that
example is sufficiently accomplished
let's move on to number three so this
one spoke about the art or the sport
rather of swimming and it was all about
how the pool is now equipped with these
special grills that eliminate turbulence
in the water
so if the water is calmer the athletes
then can swim more quickly through that
water they don't have the waves pushing
at them to slow them down so that's the
idea here that we're trying to get in to
this paragraph
so we'll start with introducing swimming
and we have here swimming is another
sport where athletes are setting new
world records thanks to structural
updates to the pools
olympic swimming pools are now equipped
with turbulent stamping grills that
eliminate the waves that are created by
the kicking and arm motions of the athletes
athletes
calmer waters easily produce faster race results
results
so again we added that last little
phrase there to summarize or to connect
i guess
this notion of how the grills in the
swimming pool also allow athletes to
compete much faster now than ever before
so we have very strong coherence every
single detail here you can see through
the orange underlying details they all
speak about fast times
following the the example of how the
specific piece of equipment has been
innovated or advanced in modern times so
we're pretty much done the paragraph i
think one more sentence at the end here
to conclude or to summarize would be
helpful in this regard
so let's try something like this this is
a complex sentence so it adds also a bit
of elevation to the academic nature of
our writing we might say
although training and proper nutrition
play a large part in an athlete's
results at the games
advancements in the equipment that the
competitors use
is certainly a contributing factor to
the record-breaking speeds that are
being set in modern times
connection if you will in the conclusion
there's my connection back to the top
faster results and record breaking
speeds as well
okay i notice i've got a small grammar
mistake there too advancements in the equipment
equipment
should be that the competitors use
are certainly contributing factors so as
you do the proofreading as you're
catching mistakes as you go you would
want to fix them as you go all right i'm
not going to take the time to do that
now but i point it out because sometimes
as we're writing we don't even notice
the mistakes we make but there's one there
there
all right let's move on to
the next body paragraph we're finished
with body paragraph one i think body
paragraph two is ready to be begun
this one's a completely different topic
it's all about having more competitive
performances so we're finished with
speed we don't want to talk about that
again here's the new focus of this new paragraph
paragraph
so again just like we did earlier we
should start with the topic sentence
it's going to introduce what this whole
paragraph's about something to do with
competitive performances showing higher
level skill sets and so on
one way you might transition into this
this new topic is somehow by referencing
the idea that came earlier in this case
the faster times and then adding on this
new idea that also shows
improved performance at the games
so this is what i mean let's let's look
at this example and see what you think
it says here that faster finish times
are not the only benefit for olympic
athletes as a result of technological advancements
