Before you start writing, it’s important to have a plan. Ask yourself:
What exactly is the question asking?
Do you need to give your opinion?
Do you need to discuss both sides?
What main ideas can support your answer?
What sub-ideas that can extend & develop your main ideas?
Once you have a plan, you can begin writing an effective IELTS Writing Task 2 essay. Let's look T more detail at these 5 questions you need to ask yourself as you plan.
1. What exactly is the question asking?
It’s really important to understand the question clearly, especially when you’re under exam pressure. You will lose marks if you include ideas in your answer that are not relevant (that do not clearly answer the question).
Look carefully at the key words in the question. Make sure that your ideas include all of the things in the question.
For example look at the following question asks:
Is learning a foreign language beneficial for young children?
Writing about the only benefits of learning a foreign language is not enough. You must talk about the benefits or drawbacks to young children.
It's natural to want to start writing immediately, but please be careful and really make sure you know exactly what the question is asking.
2. Do you need to give your opinion?
Most IELTS Writing Task 2 questions require your opinion, but not always. This is really important to pay attention to this because if you don’t give your opinion, and it’s needed, you will lose marks.
Sometimes it's very obvious, for example:
What is your opinion?
Do you agree or disagree?
What do you think?
Sometimes it's implicit, and not so obvious, for example:
Is this a positive or negative development?
To what extent do the benefits outweigh the problems?
What factors are most important in…?
We will discuss this more in the next unit - you can go directly here.
3. Do you need to discuss both sides?
Some IELTS Writing Task 2 questions require that you look at both sides of the question while for others it is not necessary. If the question requires discussing both sides, you must do so, or you will lose marks for Task Response.
Tasks that ask for you to discuss both side will directly ask for it:
Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages.
Discuss both sides and give your opinion.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of...?
**Remember, even if the question does not require looking at both sides, you still can, and in fact, very high scoring IELTS answers usually do.
4. What main ideas can support your answer?
Once you are sure that you understand what the question is asking and what it requires, it’s time to think about your main ideas.
You need two main ideas, one for each body paragraph.
Your main ideas will be quite general. You can then develop and extend these main idea by going into more detail with sub-ideas that are more specific.
At this point don't panic if nothing comes to mind immediately. Just ask yourself questions like:
What are the consequences?
Who will be affected?
Is it a good thing or a bad thing?
What are the advantages?
What are the disadvantages?
Who wins?
Who loses?
Practicing this is essential, as the more you practice IELTS Writing Task 2 the easier it will be to think of ideas for your answers. After you’ve written 50 answers, you’ll have no problem ;)
Don’t stress about this. Remember that the ideas do not have to be interesting, original or special. They must only be relevant.
5. What sub-ideas that can extend & develop your main ideas?
Your main ideas for your 2 body paragraphs will be quite general. But you will need to develop and extend these main ideas by going into more detail with sub-ideas that are more specific.
For example, let’s look at a body paragraph that answers the following question:
Some people think that outdoor activities are more beneficial for children’s development than playing computer games.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Firstly, the main ideas for the body paragraphs are quite general:
Outdoor activities are better for children’s development because they improve physical and mental health more than indoor activities.
Outdoor activities provide more opportunities for children to develop important interpersonal skills.
Then sub-ideas look at specific areas of these main ideas. For the 1st body paragraph they could look like this:
Main Idea 1: Outdoor activities are better for children’s development because they improve physical and mental health more than indoor activities.
Sub-idea A: Outdoor activities improve physical health more than indoor activities.
Sub-idea B: Outdoor activities are better for children’s mental health.
Now, we need to add sub-ideas for our body paragraph 2 and we have a full plan for the essay:
Main Idea 2: Outdoor activities provide more opportunities for children to develop important interpersonal skills.
Sub-idea A: Outdoor activities involve more communication & interaction, teamwork etc.
Sub-idea B: Computer gaming usually only involves one or two players; they are a more solitary activity.
The main ideas are relevant and answer the question while the sub-ideas go into more detailed and extend and develop the main ideas.
This article is taken from my IELTS Writing Task 2 course, which is a series of articles with accompanying exercises to improve your understanding of this task. To go to the original course page with exercises and activities go here.
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