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Idiomas WeLearn

Task 2 · Cross-cutting skill

Paraphrasing in English, as five things you can actually do

“Say it in your own words” is not instruction, it is a wish. Paraphrasing is five concrete moves — swap the words, move them, change their shape, turn the sentence around, rebuild it — and each one has a place where the meaning breaks. Learn the five and the blank first minute of an essay stops being blank.

5 techniquesone page each, with its own exercises
30 moveseach labelled by how safely it travels
25 exercisesplus a twelve-question mixed engine
No auto-bandevery wrong option explains itself

Official criteria and WeLearn strategy

Copying the prompt is not penalised by a rule — it is penalised by every criterion

Official format versus WeLearn strategy

Official format: IELTS does not have a paraphrasing criterion. Words copied from the prompt are simply not counted as your own language, which lowers Lexical Resource, and a first sentence that repeats the question does no work for Task Response.

WeLearn strategy: WeLearn teaches paraphrasing as five separate techniques, because 'use synonyms' collapses the moment a prompt contains a term with no synonym. Each technique has its own page, its own worked examples and its own trap.

Start here

The five techniques

Each page explains what the technique moves, gives you a sentence to judge before you write one, lists its moves with the risk each carries, works through three examples, names the mistakes it produces, and gives four exercises.

Synonyms · Parafrasear con sinónimos

The words change and the claim does not.

6 moves · 3 worked examples · 4 exercisesWord order · Cambiar el orden de las palabras

The same information arrives in a different order.

6 moves · 3 worked examples · 4 exercisesWord form · Cambiar la forma de la palabra

The same word stays, in a different grammatical shape.

6 moves · 3 worked examples · 4 exercisesVoice · Cambiar la voz: activa y pasiva

The doer and the thing done change places.

6 moves · 3 worked examples · 4 exercisesSentence structure · Cambiar la estructura de la frase

The same ideas arrive as a different number of sentences.

6 moves · 3 worked examples · 4 exercises

The one rule

A paraphrase that reads better and means something else is worth less than no paraphrase

Every technique on these pages can break the same way.
“Should” becomes “must” and a recommendation becomes an obligation. “Many” becomes “all” and a measured claim becomes one you cannot defend. “Affects” becomes “damages” and a neutral finding takes a side. That is why each page makes you judge a sentence before it lets you write one, and why 17 real classroom errors are printed here with their diagnosis instead of being tidied away.

WeLearn progressive engine

Practise all five techniques together

None of these sentences appears in the five lessons, so no model answer above gives one away. Name the technique first, then choose the strongest paraphrase, then diagnose a broken one — which is the skill you actually need when you reread your own introduction.

Level 1 · Name the technique · Exercise 1 of 4

Original: Tourists damage ancient sites every summer.

Rewrite: Ancient sites are damaged by tourists every summer.

Which technique does the work here?

Choose an option first

Where you will use this

Paraphrasing is not only the first sentence of Task 2

Task 2 introduction

The opening sentence restates the prompt. This is where these five techniques earn their marks first.

Task 1 introduction

The same job on a chart: restate what the visual shows without copying the label above it.

Linking language

Rebuilding a sentence usually needs a connector. Seven relationships, one page each.

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