Hướng dẫn chi tiết giải quyết các dạng bài IELTS Writing task 2 ( DC IELTS )

Using this checklist every time you finish your essay can help you  not to make “silly” mistakes that seriously affect your band score  learn the correct essay writing process The IELT

May 4 IELTS

Writing

Contents

Hãy nghĩ trước khi viết | Stop – think – write: a checklist for IELTS essays 2

Sử dụng bảng checklist để kiểm tra lỗi | Improve your writing by using an IELTS essays checklist 6

Cách bố cục bài luận Task 2 | How to structure IELTS essays 8

Hai cách để viết bài luận discussion | Two ways to write discussion essays for IELTS 13

Dạng bài balanced view | Writing balanced essays for IELTS 18

Dạng bài có 2 câu hỏi | Dealing with double questions essay tasks 22

Quy trình viết bài luận Task 2 | The process of writing an IELTS essay 27

Phân tích đề | Reading and understanding IELTS essay questions 31

Lập dàn ý | Planning IELTS essays – the thinking stage 33

Hướng dẫn viết Mở bài | The introduction – the link between the question and the essay 36

Hướng dẫn viết Thân bài | The content paragraphs – some checklists for before you write 40

Hướng dẫn viết Kết luận | The conclusion – a summary of the essay and an answer to the question 43

Hướng dẫn viết Kết luận (tiếp) | Essay conclusions 47

Kiểm tra lại bài viết | Reviewing your essay – part of the process of writing 50

Từ vựng cho bài luận | IELTS essay vocabulary 53

Từ vựng trang trọng cho bài luận Task 2 | Impersonal vocabulary for academic essays 55

Quy trình lập dàn ý | The process of planning an IELTS essay 57

An example of the planning process 58

Điều gì sẽ xảy ra nếu bạn không lập dàn ý | What happens if you don’t plan enough? 61

Bao nhiêu paragraphs là đủ | How many paragraphs in an IELTS essay? 62

Hiểu yêu cầu đề bài | Understanding the task in IELTS essays 64

Ba dạng câu hỏi Task 2 | The three different types of IELTS essay question 66

1 The discussion 66

2 The proposal 66

3 The argument 67

Tìm ý cho bài luận Task 2 | Ideas for IELTS essays 70

Cách để tăng điểm cho bài luận | Improve your IELTS essays – ask yourself 4 simple questions 72

Hướng dẫn viết Mở bài dạng đề discussion | Writing introductions to discussion essays 74

Phát triển ý theo công thức PEE | Paragraph coherence: the PEE model 77

Bài mẫu: Quá tải dân số | Sample IELTS overpopulation essay 80

Hướng dẫn viết CÂU ĐẦU TIÊN trong thân bài | Write better paragraphs – start with a simple sentence 83

Kết nối các đoạn văn | Linking paragraphs in an essay 85

Hãy nghĩ trước khi viết | Stop – think – write: a checklist for IELTS

essays

Further down this lesson you’ll find a checklist of some things to think about as you are writing an IELTS essay Before you get to it though, I’d like to explain how and why it may help you The basicideas are:

effective writing comes from effective thinking

you need to think as you write not just before it – just “planning” is not enough

it’s better to think before you write and not after it – you really don’t have time to draft and re-draft inIELTS

the best time to think is before every sentence and every paragraph – they are the key units of youressay

the best thinking is directed thinking – for that it helps to have some form of checklist

Let me first explain a little below why I suggest you spend more time thinking It may seem that it will slow you down and most people want to write faster! It may to begin with But you should find that withpractice you end up writing more efficiently – meaning you don’t just complete essays in time, youwrite better essays too

Clear thinking makes better writing

One – slightly simplistic – way to understand this is to see that 50% of IELTS scores come from TaskResponse and Coherence and Cohesion Those marks are less about language and more about thought and organisation Put another way, wonderful grammar and vocab only get you 50% of the way To get the other 50% you need thinking skills

Just planning is not enough

There is a limit to what you can plan in the exam room before you start writing Even if you are able toproduce all the structure, language and ideas in your planning time, you still need to decide how it all fits together

I have met very, very few students who are able to do all that in their planning time One result of this

is that a lot of people stop planning as they think they are wasting time That’s bad Much better is toaccept that your plan is not the complete answer and you can refine that plan as you write

Please note that ‘m not suggesting you don’t plan Indeed, for this thinking to work it is crucial youhave an essay structure/ideas/language – that all comes from having a plan

Don’t draft and re-draft – think before you write

If you have trouble finishing essays in the 40 minutes, it’s quite likely because you make too many mistakes and end up crossing things out One way to avoid this is just to spend more time thinking before you write This is not “planning time”, but the time you spend thinking about the best way to saysomething

If you are used to writing academic essays, you need to do in this thinking time what you’d normally do

in your re-drafting time

Think before sentences and paragraphs

When I watch students writing, I see this go wrong lots and lots Frequently I see students pausing halfway through a sentence – not knowing how to finish it This is very often when writing goes wrong – sometimes just because the two parts of the sentence don’t match each other!

One way to think of a sentence is that it is a complete thought Only start writing when that thought iscomplete in your head and your writing may improve overnight Paragraphs? Well, they’re complete ideas (thoughts put together) It’ll also really help if you get those complete ideas together before youstart writing

Direct your thinking

It’s all very well to suggest “thinking” helps, but what should you think about? This will depend on you,your experience, your level and the essay Below I make some suggestions

My thinking checklist for IELTS essays

What you will find below are a series of questions to ask yourself – feel free to amend it to your

purposes

There may seem to be a lot of questions –

You may (i.e probably will) think that my grammar/vocabulary notes in particular are too simple I justfind that the best way to get language is to think of ideas first!

It may help to remember that essays are made up of related paragraphs and a paragraph is a

collection of related sentences So when you start a paragraph you need to think of both the essay andthe sentences Likewise, you need grammar and vocabulary and coherence/cohesion skills to write a sentence

Paragraphs

ideas/language

Do I have enough language/ideas to write a complete paragraph?

What is the main idea of this paragraph? Can I put it in one sentence?

essay structure

Does that main idea fit into my essay structure?

How does this paragraph relate to the other topic paragraphs?

coherence/organisation

How is the paragraph going to be structured?

Do I have reasons and/or examples for the main idea?

How many sentences should this paragraph have?

Sentences

coherence/cohesion

What do I want to say in this sentence? Can I finish the sentence in my head?

Is this a main idea? An example? An explanation? Something else?

How does this sentence relate to the previous sentence? Do I need a linking word? How else can Ishow how it links?

grammar

Am I sure about the grammar? If not, can I put it some other way?

Is the grammar too simple/too repetitious?

vocabulary

Is the language precise?

Do I want to borrow words from the previous sentence(s)?

Do I need synonyms?

Is this language the right register (essay language)?

Further down this lesson you’ll find a checklist of some things to think about as you are writing an IELTS essay Before you get to it though, I’d like to explain how and why it may help you The basicideas are:

effective writing comes from effective thinking

you need to think as you write not just before it – just “planning” is not enough

it’s better to think before you write and not after it – you really don’t have time to draft and re-draft

Sử dụng bảng checklist để kiểm tra lỗi | Improve your writing by using

an IELTS essays checklist

This is a very simple exercise to help you to improve the quality of your IELTS essays It is particularlyuseful if you are just starting out on IELTS or if you find you are not making progress The idea is that you learn how to check your essays as an examiner would by looking at the specific band score criteria To help you do this, there is an IELTS essays checklist to download of the most important points an IELTS examiner looks for in your essays Using this checklist every time you finish your essay can help you

 not to make “silly” mistakes that seriously affect your band score

 learn the correct essay writing process

The IELTS essays checklist

Ess

a y w riti n g c he ck li st ( 475 0 4 )

Be specific when you use the checklist

The main idea of the checklist is that you are very specific what you check for and when you use thechecklist you should try to underline or mark in some way something in your essay Don’t do the lazything and just tick yes So if, for example, you are looking at the question: “Do my sentences link together?”, you might do this:

The first point to make is that politicians have a responsibility to spend public money on projects that bring a benefit to the general public T hi s has n o t been t h e c a se with space research as most

developments have been limited to helping astronauts in space or have been very specialised F o r e

x a m ple , it is not of great value to the general public that we now have pens and biros that can write upside down T hi s does not merit the huge amount of money spent.

You now know that your writing is coherent If, however, you cannot underline something in the essay,you now know what your problem is and you should mark it in the “my mistakes” table

How often to use the checklist

You need to use the checklist on a very regular basis to make this work best If you fill it out every timeyou write an essay, then two things happen:

1 checking your writing becomes an automatic process

2 you learn what makes a good IELTS essay

It may look boring, but you need to trust me here that this time boring is good Two of the main

reasons why candidates do badly are failing to find the time to check and not knowing what to checkfor You should also find that after you have done this 4/5 times, you become much more efficient when you check

What the checklist includes

The band score criteria

You will note that the checklist is organised according to the IELTS writing band score criteria The main point to note here is that each of these is equally important and all need to be checked It is notenough just to write an essay without “grammar” mistakes

The writing process

The section headed writing process asks you to note down how long you spent planning, writing andchecking the essay It is a good idea to keep a note of this because:

1 if you write down the time of the planning and checking phases, you will actually plan and check youressays – the chances are that if your essays score badly it is because you didn’t spend enough timeplanning and checking

2 you learn how long you need for each stage in the exam when you are under time pressure

3 you can check your progress on how long it takes you to write an IELTS essay I certainly don’t

suggest you start by trying to write one in 40 minutes

Your mistakes

The “your mistakes” section is vital We all use language in our own way and we all make our own mistakes The idea is that you keep a record of the types of mistake you make so that you can check for those mistakes in the checking phase If you don’t have a teacher, you can always try typing one ofyour essays into Microsoft Word and using the grammar check feature: it isn’t perfect but it can help

The checklist is too simple?

If you think that the checklist is too simple for your needs I would suggest that you take a look at my sample essays and experiment by analysing them with this checklist – you should find that it works forthem!

But the smart learner is the one who adopts and adapts: so feel free to amend it to your needs.

Cách bố cục bài luận Task 2 | How to structure IELTS essays

This lesson shows you a simple way to structure IELTS essays Below I show a very simple method(with a downloadable resource) I use myself and also show my students in class

Hãy đọc và hiểu câu hỏi | Read and understand the question

One key to it is understand the question and to be clear about what you want to say in your response Clear thinking leads to clear writing.As ever, the first step is to read and understand the question Here

is the question today:

Despite advances in medicine there are concerns that certain diseases such as diabetes are increasing and some people believe future generations will face greater problems with health and die younger than we do today.

What is your opinion?

This question asks you to:

1 give your opinion – this must be clear in the introduction and the conclusion

2 about whether health will be better in future – this means that you need to talk about the future andnow – there must be some comparison

3 about whether people will live longer – this needs to be mentioned to

All these things must be included

Think about the examiner – make your opinion and structure clear – give your essay a backbone

IELTS essays get marked quickly You don’t want to allow the examiner to make a mistake So makelife easy for him/her by showing the structure of your essay as clearly as possible There are 4 placesyou do this – what I think of as being the spine of the essay (your spine is your backbone – it’s whatkeeps you upright and gives you your structure)

1 the introduction – that’s the first thing they read and where you make your first impression and firstimpressions count

2 the first sentence of each paragraph (x2) – examiners are taught that each paragraph should have onemain idea – show them what it is in the first sentence

3 the conclusion – that’s the last thing they read and the first thing they remember!

The key is link these things together so that

 the introduction matches the conclusion – the opinion/point of view is the same: you just need to

change the language

 the two body paragraphs link to the opinion/point view in the introduction

To do this try this simple essay structure plan It may just look like 4 boxes on a blank piece of paper ,but it might save your life!

Download my plan to structure IELTS essays

Str

u ct u re IE L T S e ss a y s plan ( 41 9 8 )

Suy nghĩ thật rõ ràng về quan điểm và ý kiến của chính bạn | Think clearly about your opinion/point of view

You want your point of view to be clear My basic rule is that if you can’t say in 2 sentences, it’s too complex So part of the planning process may be deleting ideas that are too complex or that you can’texpress clearly in English.

See my example

I’m going to go for a balanced type essay with an argument that it health and longevity (living for a longtime) will get worse in the West but better in developing nations Before I start writing I make sure I cansay this simply

I think health will get worse in the west but better in developing countries and this will affect how longpeople live

Xây dựng bố cục bài luận | Build the spine of your essay – see my

example

All you need to do now is build the spine of the essay: the intro, first sentences and conclusion I really

do do this using my essay structure plan above I ended up with this Take a look at it See

 how simple it is – that’s good, you do want a simple structure

 how things repeat – that’s good too

 I crossed out my idea about stress and mental health It’s a good idea, but would make the essay toocomplex

Tìm từ vựng | Now get the words

This lesson wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t show you the “end-product” Your plan is only good if ithelps you write well Take a look at my opinions (in red) and the balance between developing countries(in green) and the industrialised nations (in blue)

There is no question that medicine has progressed dramatically over the last century, but this does notmean that all our medical problems have been solved Indeed, my belief is that the average life span

in the Western world may actually fall in the 21st century This is in contrast to the situation in

developing countries where I expect health provision to improve and longevity to increase

Paragraph 1

The main reason why overall health may become worse in the industrialised nations of the

West relates to modern lifestyles there

Hai cách để viết bài luận discussion | Two ways to write discussion

essays for IELTS

This lesson shows you two different discussion essays for IELTS Part of the idea is to show you that there is always more than one way to approach an IELTS essay I also want to show you what you need to consider when you write discussion essays for IELTS This means first looking at some basicideas about essays and then thinking about what “discuss” means

Two basic principles

When you write discussion essays for IELTS you need to understand 2 basic principles that apply to allIELTS essays:

your essay must answer the question fully

your essay must be coherent

To get both of these right you need to think clearly about your essay structure before you start writing

Identify discuss questions

The question can be asked in different ways the usual format is typically:

Discuss both these points of view and give your opinion

If the question asks you to discuss, you do just that: discuss

Discuss can mean two things

In fact, the question never ever says “write a discussion essay” The reason for this is that differentteachers have different ideas about what a discussion essay is The idea is not to write a model

“discussion essay”, rather it is to discuss the topic in the question – something quite different.

One key point here is that there are different ways to discuss something Discuss includes both these

ideas:

stating what people think (perhaps saying why they believe this – this is a more objective approach)

commenting on what people think (perhaps saying what the pros and cons of their view is – this

a more subjective approach)

For me, the better type of discussion essay is one that both states and comments on the differentviews – if you do this you will discuss better

Get a logical and clear essay structure

There is absolutely no one structure for a discuss question in IELTS You simply have to find a

structure that is logical and allows you to answer the question You will find 3 different examples ofhow to do this below in my essays Whichever structure you choose, you need to decide first:

what is my introduction?

how am I going to write two/three clear topic paragraphs?

what is my conclusion?

do all the parts of my essay fit together?

See two different ways how to write a discussion essay

You will find below 2 different discussion essays with detailed writing notes What you should see isthat:

both essays answer the question: they discuss the issue and give an opinion

one essay keeps the opinion to the end and discusses only objectively

the other establishes the opinion in the introduction and comments on the issues throughout the essay

Almost everyone agrees that we should be training children to recycle waste to save the

Earth’s natural resources Some believe that it is parents who should teach their children to recycle waste Others argue that school is the best place to teach do this Discuss both views and give your own opinion

Most people would agree that young people need to be taught about the importance of recycling wasteproducts and packaging There is a difference of opinion, however, whether this should happen at home or in schools In this essay, I will examine both points of view and then state my opinion

The argument in favour of teaching children at school about recycling is largely based around the ideathat schools and other educational establishments are the best environment for training children This

is because teachers have a natural authority over their pupils who are used to learning from them Additionally, the need for recycling could easily be included in biology and geography classess

There are two main reasons why people think parents taking responsibility for this training could be more effective The first is that the majority of recycling takes place in the home and parents can therefore more easily control the recycling habits of their children If, for example, parents see their child put a recyclable bottle in the wrong bin, they can explain that it needs to go in another bin The other very practical point is that often children spend more time at home than at school and so parentsmay have more effect

My own view is that the best solution is for children to learn about recycling both at home and at

school In this way, they would learn about both the theory and the practice

(277 words)

Notes

Overview

This is a much more objective discussion essay

 you separate out your opinion from what other people say Your opinion only comes at the end

 it looks like an easy structure/formula to learn

 it may look easy to write but it is very hard to write well The introduction uses some dangerously formulaic language and is avery weak thesis statement

 the conclusion is usually more difficult to write well as you need to refer to the main body paragraphs

to make the essay coherent It is not really enough jus tot say “this is what I think” Rather, you need tolink that conclusion with the main ideas of the paragraph and that means giving reasons that are found

in the body paragraphs (both of them)

 be very careful about balance If you try to write objectively like this, you need to do it throughout the whole essay You cannot put in personal opinions in one body paragraph and not the other If you do,

your essay will become incoherent Your point of view must remain consistent This means that if

you start out neutrally, you must continue neutrally

Structure

Introduction – 3 sentences normally

 Here is the issue

 Here are the two views

 Here is what I’m going to say

Main body 1

 This is why people think school is the best place (i.e main idea = one point of view)

 Reasons with examples (support)

Main body 2

 This is why people think home is the best place (i.e the other main idea = the other point of view)

 Reasons with examples (support)

Conclusion

 Your opinion – also summarizing the main points of the essay to make it coherent

Almost everyone agrees that we should be training children to recycle waste to save the

Earth’s natural resources Some believe that it is parents who should teach their children to recycle waste Others argue that school is the best place to teach do this Discuss both views and give your own opinion

It is not easy to decide how to teach young people about the necessity to recycle waste products One school of thought is that they should be taught this in school Another possibility is that this training should take place in the home While teachers may have some part to play, my view is that parents are more likely to be effective in achieving practical results.

The idea that children should learn about recycling as part of their general education does have its merits One reason why people propose this is that recycling could easily fit in with other subjects on the curriculum such as geography and biology The general idea is that if children understand about

the effects that not recycling has on the environment, then they will naturally choose to recycle waste and packaging themselves The drawback is that children frequently do not apply what they learn as theory to life itself.

The alternative suggestion of giving the primary responsibility to parents seems more likely to be effective in practice This is partly because the majority of recycling actually happens in the home where parents and teachers are present Parents can, for example, ensure that their children get into habit of sorting waste and packaging and putting it into the correct bin It is also relevant that parents usually have greater influence over their children than teachers do A child is typically going to listen to the advice of a parent than a teacher, simply because their relationship is closer.

My conclusion is therefore that while it may seem better for children to learn about recycling at school,

in practice that training would be more effective when given by parents.

(282 words)

Notes

Overview

This is a much more subjective/comment discussion essay

 the point of view of the writer is clear throughout the essay

 it follows a logical structure

 the introduction avoids formula language and so requires more thought It has a strong thesis

statement where you say exactly what you think.

 You must make sure that you also cover both points of view and not just give your own

opinions in the body paragraphs

 the conclusion matches the introduction almost exactly and is therefore easier to write: you simply lookback at the introduction before you write the conclusion

 the point of view needs to be consistent all the way through the essay This means that you need to

make sure that what you say about each of the two views is the same as in your introduction andconclusion

Structure

Introduction – 3 sentences normally

 Here is the issue

 Here are the two views

 Here is my opinion [contrast this with the first essay where you do not give your opinion in the

introduction]

Main body 1

 This is why people think school is the best place (i.e main idea = one point of view)

 comment on whether you think it is a good idea or not

 Reasons with examples (support)

Main body 2

 This is why people think home is the best place (i.e the other main idea = the other point of view)

 comment on whether you think it is a good idea or not

 Reasons with examples (support)

it is typically much more coherent – your point of view is clear throughout the whole essay and not justthe conclusion

it allows you to avoid some very tired formulaic language

Some people prefer the other structure Here is why it may help

it is perhaps quicker to learn – it often includes more formula language

it allows you to treat the two parts of the question separately: first their views and then your opinion –this can seem simpler especially at lower levels

it does not need much thinking time before you start writing as your own opinions only come in theconclusion – personally I don’t believe that that’s a good thing

Dạng bài balanced view | Writing balanced essays for IELTS

This lesson talks you through an approach to writing balanced essays in IELTS This is one form of essay you should be prepared to write It is certainly not the case that you have to express strong opinions in essays, you simply have to express clear opinions One way of doing this is to look at bothsides of the argument and consider their merits in turn – this is a balanced essay

When to write a balanced essay

The best time to use this approach is when you yourself can see merit in both sides of the argument –

it is not the case that this approach is restricted to “Discussion” essays: it is quite possible to use it in

“Argument” essays

Essay structure and coherence

One key to writing a balanced essay is to make sure that the structure is coherent This means that all the parts of the essay should fit together as a whole The idea is to make sure that anyone reading the

essay understands that it is looking at both sides of the issue This should be clear at all stages of the essay A common problem is that one part of the essay does not fit into the main structure.To do this,

you need to consider:

 planning the whole essay before you start writing

 linking the different parts of the essay together

 writing the essay as part of a process – go back and read what have just written before you write thenext bit

 concentrating on the intro/topic sentences and the conclusion

The basic approach

The basic approach is quite simple: in each topic paragraph you consider a different/opposing point of view You then summarise your view about which side you prefer in the conclusion In an exam essay,

it is almost certainly the best advice not to try and discuss the two points of view at the same time in one paragraph If you do this it is quite likely that the “argument” becomes confused and your main goal is clarity

In this form of essay, it is conventional to look at the side you disagree with first This allows you to find

a natural link between your final content paragraph and the conclusion – they should be saying almostthe same thing

Introduction

The goal here is to state clearly that the essay is going to take a balanced position and/or look at bothsides of the issue This means examiner/reader should understand from the introduction your positionand how essay will be structured In practice this means that in the intro you should try to:

 identify both sides of the argument

 show that there is merit on both sides

 identify which side you favour, (the balanced approach) and/or

 say you will look at both sides (the more neutral approach)

In the two example below, you should see the difference between these two approaches.

Neutral approach

In this approach, you merely state that both sides have merit and say you will look at both sides of thecase

While there are grounds to argue that it would benefit society and young people themselves if

teenagers were made to do unpaid work in the community, it can equally be argued that this would be

an infringement of their rights In this essay, I shall examine the merits of both sides of the

argument and state my own opinion.

Balanced approach

This is the approach I generally prefer as you clearly identify your position on one side of the argument

or the other I believe it is better because it is simply clearer

There are grounds to argue that it would benefit society and young people themselves if teenagers were made to do unpaid work in the community While this is an interesting proposal and has some merit, my own view is that it would infringe their rights.

Main body

In the main body, there are two ideas to focus on:

1 the paragraphs should balance each other

2 the paragraphs should link back to position in the introduction

Balancing your paragraphs

The key to making sure your paragraphs balance each other is to use your topic/first sentences reflecteach other The examiner/reader should immediately understand how the paragraph fits into the structure of the essay A simple way of doing this is to use similar introductory language in each paragraph In the example below, it should be easy to see (even without the highlighting) how the following paragraphs balance each other and reflect each others’ language

One argument in favour of making teenagers do voluntary work in the community is that it would benefit society It is certainly true that there is a shortage of labour in many parts of the public sector and if young people worked, then many public services would improve For example, it would be quite possible for teenagers to do part-time jobs in the health such as working as hospital porters This would have the effect of ensuring patients got better care and would allow trained professionals to concentrate on more skilled tasks – something that would benefit society as a whole.

Despite this argument, there is an equally strong case to be made that it would be morally wrong to force teenagers to go out to work, particularly if they did not earn a salary This can be explained by the fact that in recent years, there has been a global movement to stop the practice of child labour.

v u h i d a ng

The main philosophy behind this movement is that childhood, including the teenage years, should be a time for education and growth, not work It would not just send the wrong message out if teenagers were made to do voluntary work, there is also the real danger that young people would be exploited in the workplace.

Linking back to the introduction

A second skill is to make sure that your topic paragraphs refer back to the position in the introduction

This is because it is important to maintain a constant position throughout the essay -something

that can often go wrong with balanced essays Again, a simple to achieve this is to make sure that thelanguage and ideas of the first\topic sentences is reflected in the introduction

This means that you should really have a clear idea of your whole essay before you write the

introduction A second tip is that in the process of writing the content paragraphs of your essay youshould refer back to the introduction to borrow language and ideas from there If you look at the

examples below, you should see how the first sentence of each paragraph links clearly back to the introduction

While there are grounds to argue that it would benefit society and young people themselves if

teenagers were made to do unpaid work in the community, it can equally be argued that this would

be an infringement of their rights In this essay, I shall examine the merits of both sides of the

argument

One argument in favour of making teenagers to do voluntary work in the community is that it

would benefit society.

Despite this arguments, there is an equally strong case to be made that it would be morally wrong to force teenagers to go out to work, particularly if they did not earn a salary

The conclusion

The same ideas apply to the conclusion: the language and ideas of the intro and the first/topic

sentences should be reflected here too You may also consider referring back to some of the details ofyour argument to emphasise that you are able to support your case with reasons and examples Do that and the the essay should be coherent Again, it greatly helps if you remember to go back and re- read the essay before you write the conclusion

Some people think that teenagers should do unpaid work to help society because this will help them to be better individuals and also improve the society as a whole To what extent do you agree or disagree with this proposal?

While there are grounds to argue that it would benefit society and young people themselves if

teenagers were made to do unpaid work in the community, it can equally be argued that this would be

an infringement of their rights In this essay, I shall examine the merits of both sides of the argument One argument in favour of making teenagers to do voluntary work in the community is that it

would benefit society It is certainly true that there is a shortage of labour in many parts of the public sector and if young people worked, then many public services would improve For example, it would be quite possible for teenagers to do part-time jobs in the health such as working as hospital porters This would have the effect of ensuring patients got better care and would allow trained professionals to concentrate on more skilled tasks – something that would benefit society as a whole.

Despite these arguments, there is an equally strong case to be made that it would be morally wrong to force teenagers to go out to work , particularly if they did not earn a salary This can be explained by the fact that in recent years, there has been a global movement to stop the practice of child labour The main philosophy behind this movement is that childhood, including the teenage years, should be a

were made to do voluntary work, there is also the real danger that young people would be exploited in

In conclusion, I believe that while there are real merits on both sides of the argument, the moral case againstforcing young people to work slightly outweighs any benefit to society This is reinforced by belief in the principle that childhood is a time for education and fear of the danger of exploitation

Footnote on essay writing and essay structures

The ideas in this lesson are all contained in my s e ri s of le ss on s on t h e r o c e ss of e ss a y w riti n g Much of the secret of writing a good essay in the exam is not to go in with a pre-prepared plan, but to

make sure that as you write you concentrate on the question in front of you and organising your

language and thoughts in answer to that question

Dạng bài có 2 câu hỏi | Dealing with double questions essay tasks

One common but tricky task in IELTS is when you get an essay that combines two different questions.This can cause problems with essay structure The main idea is that you must

 answer both part of the questions

 if you don’t you may well get penalised for task achievement To get this right you need to thinkcarefully about essay structure before you start

General approach

My suggested approach is the same as for any type of essay question:

Understand the question

Decide on your point of view

Make the point of view clear in the introduction

Decide how to use your 2/3 main body paragraphs

Use the conclusion to reflect your introduction

The tricky part is probably getting the introduction and conclusion right

Understand the question – make sure you understand both parts of the question

The first step is to understand the question and see that the question is asking you to do two things Atypical question looks like this:

Nowadays the way many people interact with each other has changed because of

technology In what ways has technology affected the types of personal relationships?

Has this become a positive or negative development?

Think about structure

You should see immediately that there are 2 questions and the sensible approach is to structure youranswer so that is 100% clear to the examiner that you have answered both parts Before you start writing it is 100% important that you think about what the questions are asking you to do

Think about what the questions ask you to do

Quite often with this type of question the two separate parts ask you to write in different ways and that

typically (not always) one part of the question will ask you to discuss a problem and the other part of the question will ask you to give an opinion.

So in the example question

In what ways has technology affected the types of personal relationships? is a discussion type

question which you can write more objectively

Has this become a positive or negative development? is an opinion question which requires

a subjective opinion answer

This means your answer has two include two separate parts – a more general discussion and an

opinion

Suggested overall structure

My overall structure would look like this

Introduction

This is the issue Technology has changed relationships

Change happens in different ways

Opinion about whether change positive or negative

Main paragraph A – different types of change

A listing type paragraph showing the types of change – written as a discussion

Main paragraph B – opinion about positive or negative

A more opinion type paragraph with emphasis on why changes in paragraph A are good or bad

Conclusion

Short summary as to why positive or negative and what change is most significant

Getting the introduction right

As I say, this may be the tough part of the essay as you need to make sure that in one paragraph you

identify both parts of the question

make sure your opinion/point of view is clear

This may mean that you will spend a little more time and energy on the the introduction than you wouldfor other question types as you may have more to do

Model introduction

Here is my example:

Advances in technology have without doubt influenced the way we communicate with each other in a number of different ways While some of this change can have a negative influence on the we way interact, my view is that overall modern technology typically improves communication in personal relationships.

Notes

You should see that I clearly identify the two parts of the question:

Advances in technology have without doubt influenced the way we communicate with each other in a number of different ways.While some of this change can have a negative influence on the we way interact, my view is that overall modern technology typically improves communication in personal relationships.

Also note that I am 100% clear that I will have an opinion as the question asks me to do

Advances in technology have without doubt influenced the way we communicate with each other in a number of different ways.While some of this change can have a negative influence on the we way interact, my view is that overall modern technology typically improves communication in personal relationships.

Suggested structure for main body paragraphs

The simple and clear way to do this is to use a separate main body paragraph in your essay for eachquestion That way it will clear straightaway that you are on task It may be possible to combine the two parts of the question in different ways, but don’t bother Do the simple thing Simple is good in exam circumstances My very strong suggestion is

paragraph A – discuss how technology has changed relationships

paragraph B – discuss if this is a positive or negative

Linking your paragraphs and being consistent

If you are aiming for a higher band score you also want to find a link between your two main body paragraphs This will help your coherence score My suggestion here is that you start the paragraph Babout whether this is negative or positive by referring back to the changes in paragraph A The key

word is this or these.

Model paragraphs

Paragraph A

It is clear that technology has changed the way we communicate in several respects Perhaps the clearest example of this is that nowadays many people prefer to keep in touch to their friends and relatives using applications and social networking sites like FaceTime, Skype and Facebook Another way this change is evident is how the email and texting have almost completely replaced the letter as the primary form of written communication Because these modern forms of communication are typically much more convenient and instant, one result is that we can communicate more easily with people who we do not see on a daily basis.

Paragraph B

I would argue that these innovations have mostly improved personal relationships The principal

benefit is that it just so much easier to stay in touch with people we might otherwise lose contact with.

It is for example now very straightforward to keep in contact with friends from university who move to different cities after they graduate and this means relationships last longer The only real drawback is that sometimes people become so addicted to their online social networks that they stop

communicating with friends in the real world That, however, is a minor issue.

You need to be careful to make sure your ideas are consistent Most of the examples in my paragraph

A are positive because my paragraph B is positive If you want a negative paragraph B, then your examples in paragraph A should be negative too

The conclusion

Just as with the introduction you want to try and identify both parts of the question Ideally, you want to

refer to the different changes and your opinion.

Model conclusion

My conclusion is therefore that new forms technological communication have in fact largely

improved human interaction because emails, texting and social networks enable us to maintain

friendships which might otherwise be lost.

Notes

This is a great conclusion as it covers both parts of the essay task It also manages to include my mainreason

The top top top tip is to re-read your essay before you write the conclusion That way it is much easier

to write a summary like this

It is clear that technology has changed the way we communicate in several respects Perhaps the clearestexample of this is that nowadays many people prefer to keep in touch to their friends and relatives using applications and social networking sites like FaceTime, Skype and Facebook Another way this change is evident is how the email and texting have almost completely replaced the letter as the primary form of written communication Because these modern forms of communication are typically much more

convenient and instant, one result is that we can communicate more easily with people who we do not see

on a daily basis

I would argue that these innovations have mostly improved personal relationships The principal benefit isthat it just so much easier to stay in touch with people we might otherwise lose contact with It is for example now very straightforward to keep in contact with friends from university who move to different cities after they graduate and this means relationships last longer The only real drawback is that

sometimes people become so addicted to their online social networks that they stop communicating with friends in the real world That, however, is a minor issue

My conclusion is therefore that new forms technological communication have in fact largely improved human interaction because emails, texting and social networks enable us to maintain friendships whichmight otherwise be lost (278 words)

Quy trình viết bài luận Task 2 | The process of writing an IELTS essay

The key word in the title of this lesson is process The idea is that if you want to write a successful

exam essay, it helps to think of the essay not just as a product but something that is produced as a result of the process of writing If you miss out on one of the stages of this process, then the essay itself may not work.To get this right, it helps to understand the different stages in the process of writingand what you want to achieve at each stage of the process

And so what you will find here is

 a little bit more about why I think it helps to concentrate on the process of writing an essay

 a suggested process with explanation about what you should think about in each stage

 advice on common mistakes that can happen if a stage in the process is missed out

 a practice exercise

I should add that there is no “magic formula” here This is just one process that I believe works for

IELTS essays You may be familiar with other processes That’s fine The smart candidate will adapt what they read here to themselves.

Why writing should be a process – avoiding two very common problems

1 incoherence – essays that do not fit together

If you think of your writing as a process, then you are much more likely to go through all the stages of

an essay (step 1, step 2 step 3 etc) and to recognise the importance of each part of an essay This

way you are more likely to make your writing coherent If, however, you think of an essay as a whole

product , it is much easier to miss out a vital step and the essay as a result becomes incoherent

2 the wrong essay – an essay you already know – or the wrong question

The danger with pre-planned essays is that they don’t answer the question You sit down and startwriting an essay which is already in your head and not one that answers the question in front of you

Alternatively, you may get a question type that you are unfamiliar with In this situation, it helps to have

a routine or process you can rely on You can still answer the question, even if it seems to be a

question type you don’t know Learn the skill of writing an essay, learn the process of exam essay writing and life becomes easier

The pre-writing process

In many many cases, this is where things go wrong and this is the part of the process that gets

forgotten in the heat of the exam There is always time for this part of the process – it’s not somethingthat should be automatic and “forgotten”

Stage 1 – read and understand the question

Many “good’ essays go wrong simply because they don’t answer the question that is being asked AllIELTS essay questions have a precise question that needs to be answered If you fail to give time to

reading and understanding the question, you are most unlikely to answer it well A possible problem

here is that some candidates may come from an academic background where it is enough to write about the general topic within the question That doesn’t work in IELTS To avoid this common mistakesimply make giving enough time to read and understand the question part of your writing routine

Common mistakes

 You get an essay topic, you have written before You write the same answer The question is different

 You write about a general topic, not the question itself

 You simply misunderstand what the question is asking you to do

Stage 2 – think – don’t just plan, really think

I could call this stage in the process “Plan” Here I prefer the word “Think” The danger with plans are that they may be ready-made and they may not fit the question in front of you I prefer the word “Think”because it is more likely to get you looking at the question in front of you and deciding how you can

answer it using your language, knowledge and experience at that moment Part of the point is that you

should treat each different essay as a new essay You can borrow structures/ideas/language from essays you have written in the past, but you need to make certain they apply to the question in front of you That means thinking: thinking not just about what to include but what not to include Your ideas must link together to form a whole – that requires more thought

Common mistakes

 The ideas and examples are fine, they don’t relate to the question as it is asked

 You start writing and then half way through you realise that your essay doesn’t make sense – it’s toolate to start over

The writing process

I think it can help to divide the writing process into 3 to reflect the 3 parts of your essay Each part of your essay does a different job to do, so why not treat each part of the essay as a different stage in theprocess?

Stage 3 – write an introduction – look both backwards and forwards

The intro matters for various reasons Not the least of these is that it is the first thing the examiner reads Get it wrong and you have made an immediate bad impression That’s not good Another point

to focus on in this part of the process is that the intro is the link between the question and your answer

In this stage of the process, I suggest you need to ensure that you are looking back at the question (to make sure that you are writing about the right thing) and forwards towards your answer (that anyone reading knows what you are talking about)

Common problem to be avoided

 You don’t identify the question correctly

 It’s not clear what your position to the question is

Common problems

 There’s too much detail and it isn’t clear what the main idea is

 The ideas aren’t supported with reasons and examples

 The ideas are good but they don’t relate to the question

Stage 5 – summarise the ideas in your conclusion – make sure your

essay is a whole

No essay would be complete without a conclusion of course The writing skill is slightly different here too I would suggest that it is different because it is a reading then writing skill – you can’t very well write a conclusion until/unless you have read your essay This is because your conclusion makes youressay complete by going back to the introduction and reflecting the question there and also looking back to the main body and picking out your main points there It’sa different writing skill because you are trying to say as much as possible in only a few words – that is what a summary is!

Common mistakes

 sometimes the conclusion doesn’t get written – that means you haven’t written an essay

 sometimes the conclusion doesn’t match the content of the essay – or, even worse, it doesn’t answerthe question

Stage 6 – go over what you wrote

The reality of exam essays is that you only have one chance to get it right You don’t have time to write

it once and then improve it – as you would with a piece of real academic writing That said, it is

important to check what you write My personal suggestion is that this stage of the process gets

repeated during the entire writing stage – do not leave it to the end That’s almost certainly too late

A practice exercise – you can learn more from rewriting an old essay than writing a new essay

This is boring perhaps but it is a real learning exercise Find an essay you have already written Write itagain The idea is not so much to correct mistakes in your old essay, it’s to be aware of the process of writing It works to take an old essay because you already have ideas and words for it You don’t have

to worry so much about content (the what) more about the process (the how)

 Concentrate on each phase of the process – ask yourself the question “what I am trying to do now?”

 Don’t worry about timing too much – it may even make sense to have a cup of tea between each stage

Phân tích đề | Reading and understanding IELTS essay questions

The emphasis of this lesson is only this: that it pays to spend time reading and understanding the question The general message is that while this is normally a simple step in the essay writing

process, it is vitally important because:

 there is always a question to be answered – it won’t just be about a general topic

 your essay needs to focus on that question as it is asked – this is Task Response 25% of your mark

 more generally, many IELTS essays go wrong before they have even started as the question isn’tidentified or understood

To help with this I briefly talk you through 5 possible ideas to help you understand questions Most ofideas are very simple – and in exams simple tends to be good There are also a couple of exercises for you to test your skills

Thinking about questions – 5 ideas to consider

Here are 5 different ways to think about questions You don’t need to use them all All I suggest is thatconsider them all and choose the one(s) that work for you The rule, as ever, is to do what works – although you may find that what doesn’t work now may work later, and that if you keep on doing only the same thing, your writing may not improve but stay the same

1 analyse the question – find the task

The idea here is to break the question down into parts and look at what is the task and what is

background information only Typically, IELTS essay questions come in two parts: the first part

introduces the topic/background information and the second part tells you what you have to write Thatsecond bit is the task and the task is the bit your essay must answer

2 underline key words

If you are a more visual thinker, then it can help to underline/highlight key words to make you focus onthe question There is a danger here though that you focus too much on those words and ignore the meaning of the question as a whole

3 rephrase the question in your words

This may seem to be a waste of time in the exam, but it can in fact be very practical The benefit of doing this is that you are much more likely to understand the question if you put it into your own words.Also, it need not be a waste of time because you are very likely going to rephrase the question in your introduction too and you can use what you write in the intro

4 categorise the question/essay

Some people like to put essays into categories such as “opinion essay” “discussion essay” “argumentessay” etc and decide to answer the question based on a certain model To do this, you look at the question and decide what type of essay it wants This can help because it makes the planning of youressay less stressful – it’s already half done I’d add though:

 you want to be flexible in how you use your models and remember to focus on the question in front ofyou This is especially true if you want a high band score, then you need to learn to vary your models

or have a much greater range of models

 you get a mark for answering the question , not writing a “discussion essay” or following a particular model The examiners do not have a special set of criteria for different models of essay and it can bemisleading to think that any one question must be written according to one model

5 count the questions

Questions vary Some questions require more than one answer These can be dangerous questionsbecause if you only answer one part of it, you will lose considerably on Task Response Simple

answer Count how many questions there are

A quick quiz – can you match the question to the introduction?

In the quiz below you will find 4 different IELTS essay questions and one model introduction All of the questions relate to the same topic – town and country (an old favourite) Your job is simply to decide which essay the introduction is for The idea is to show you some of the ways an essay can go wrong ifyou don’t take time to fully understand the question

To do the exercise you need to understand that your introduction should refer back to the question and

show that you have understood it– you can’t write an introduction if you don’t understand the question and if you get the intro wrong, the whole essay will likely go wrong.

An increasing number of people choose to work in cities in order to receive the higher salaries on offer there, but live in the countryside for the peace and quiet While there is much to be said for this,

particularly for families with young children, there are also a number of drawbacks to this lifestyle.

Understanding the task words

Nearly all IELTS questions are relatively simple to interpret They tell you pretty much exactly how towrite your essay Mostly, you just need to think about what the question asks you to do Try this quizwhich takes some of the more common question types

Further practice and reading

One simple suggestion is to go back over essays you have written in the past and look at the

introduction to your essay Can you write out the question by only reading your essay introduction and/or conclusion? If so, that’s a very good sign that you properly read and understood the question

Ryan of IELTS IELTS has an excellent a r t i c l e on in t e r p r e t in g v a r i a t ion s in e ss a y que st i o n s If you are unsure about how to interpret a question, I suggest you go read He goes into a little more detail than I

do here and he has a distinction between argument and discussion essays you might want to think about, but the message is largely the same

Lập dàn ý | Planning IELTS essays – the thinking stage

A key stage in writing the IELTS exam essay is the planning stage Very often whether you write an effective essay depends on how well you think before you start writing The trouble is that often it doesnot get done or done inefficiently

This lesson is divided into 2 main sections.In the first the emphasis is on making sure that your plansare practical – that they fit your essay The second section simply outlines different things you might

want to plan The overall concept is that the more clearly you think before the writing phase, the clearer and the better your essay will be The key word there for me is think.

Planning though does tend to be a very personal process and different things will work for different people This is part of the reason for giving you options There is little right or wrong and the questionis: does it work? Try the ideas – if they work, use them – if they don’t, try something else!

Exam practicalities – be prepared before the exam – practice and learn some skills

 Make a plan for how long you plan – before you walk into the exam room, you should know more or

less how long you expect to plan for

 Know how you will plan – the exam is not a time for experimentation – there are different ways of

making plans – find out which way(s) works for you before the exam

 Know what you will plan – there are different things you may plan – know what you personally need

to plan before the exam

Planning for a purpose – make sure your plan is practical

It’s important that you make your plan practical A good plan doesn’t need to look good, it needs to help you write an essay under pressure Here are 3 ideas to give your plan a purpose so that it helpsyou write better Sometimes plans go wrong or aren’t made simply because they aren’t practical

Am I clear in my own head about what I want to say? Can I summarise it?

Aim: If you’re not clear in your own head, then your writing almost certainly won’t be Clarity is key to a

good IELTS essay -without it you’ll lose both on Task response and Coherence

Skill: Try doing the Twitter thing and summarising your point of view to the question in 140 characters

before you start writing It need’t be 140 characters of course, but if you can’t write a short summary statement before you start writing, then quite possibly your ideas aren’t quite clear enough

Practical use: Depending on how you write the essay, you can then use this summary in either your

intro or conclusion

Can I see the structure of the essay in my head? Can I draw my essay?

Aim: The idea here is that your essay should form one complete whole Sometimes in the process of

writing it is easy to get lost in the detail of what you’re trying to say The solution is to make sure that you can see in your head (or on a piece of paper) what the final essay will look like

Skill: What I personally do here is draw a picture of my essay.It’s much quicker than writing things out

and visual often works How much detail you include will depend on you I typically don’t include much

as I am concentrating on the structure of the essay, not the detail

Practical use: This is practical as drawing a plan is quicker than writing one and time is of the

essence

I choose to put not much detail on my “drawn” plan – just the main ideas and notes of reasons andexamples I use it as a map and I find too much detail can confuse You may like to put more detailthere Experiment

Do I know what details to include? Can I tell my main points from my examples and reasons?

Aim: The idea here is to make sure that you are able to support your arguments with supporting

reasons/examples One reason some essays go wrong is that the main ideas are not supported It’s nogood having a great idea in an IELTS essay unless you can explain it

Skill: It often helps to categorise your “ideas” You want to sort out what are main points and what are

supporting reasons and examples.If you can do this, you have made a big step towards writing

coherent paragraphs – paragraphs that are made up of main points, supported by reasons and ideas

Practical use: This is extremely practical When you get to write your main paragraphs, you should be

much better able to combine your ideas so that are coherent with the main idea supported by reasons and examples

What to plan -some different options

Another way of thinking about plans and making them practical is to think precisely about what you want to plan The idea here is that you don’t just “plan”, you go into the exam room knowing what youare going to plan That way you have a better chance of using your time wisely I’d suggest that these

5 options are all things you should consider thinking about and planning before you start writing

1.Your position to the question

What:This means that you should be clear about whether you agree/disagree etc.

Why: The examiner looks for a clearly established and coherent position throughout the essay: if you

don’t have this in your head before you start, your essay will lose on Task Response and Coherence

Tip: It’s a simple thing.Read the task words in the question If it says “To what extent do you agree or

disagree”, make a sentence saying “I agree with this idea to some extent”

2 The structure of the essay

What: You need to decide how many paragraphs you will write and what the function of each

paragraph is, ie supporting or disagreeing

Model essay plans note: many candidate like to follow model plans That can work It doesn’t mean

that you don’t need to think about them in the exam though The model must fit the question

3 The vocabulary you want to use

What:this may seem a little strange but it can work If you are familiar with brainstorming techniques, it

is sometimes easier to come up with words than ideas You often find then that those words give you

A top tip – don’t think of ideas, think of main points, reasons and

examples

The reason for this is that you don’t need ideas, you need main points, reasons and examples to writecomplete paragraphs and you need to be clear about which is which

4.The main points:

What: these are often very simple and may be no more than I agree or I disagree One of your aims

should be to be clear and it helps to keep your main points as clear as possible

5.Supporting reasons

What and why: these may be more complex.You need them because both Task Response and

Coherence require you to support your ideas

Tip: It is sometimes as simple as asking yourself the question “Why do I think this?”

6 Examples

Why: Examples are useful as they help you expand your main points into complete paragraphs Tip: Your examples do not need to be “clever” The rubric asks you to use examples from your own

knowledge and experience To get examples,it can help to ask yourself the question about

examples you know of personally.In exams it is often easier to think of “memories”.

One final tip – learn to select – that means not including all your ideas

Many essays go wrong because they try and include too much – everything that is in the plan If youwant to write a coherent essay in exam time, you need to make sure that all your ideas fit together Choose the ones that suit argument,leave out the ones that don’t – no matter how good they are

Further reading

Purdue OWL is one of the top writing resources on the internet It has many, many good things Checkout its b r ain st o r m in g pag e and follow the links from there

focus on them, then you should be able to write an introduction that is clear and clarity is essential in

an essay introduction.

Overview – the introduction – looking backwards and forwards

A good place to start is to understand the introduction’s role in the essay One possible way of doing

this is just to see it as the link between your essay and the question – it looks both backwards to

the question and forwards to what you will write in the essay If you understand that the question always asks you to write an answer saying “what you think” about that question (whether in opinion/argument/discussion format), then you should see that the intro should:

1 explain the question

2 outline your position in relation to it

Identifying the question – looking backwards

The next step is to be aware of two problems that you may face when identifying the question Aproblem known is a problem at least half-solved

Complex questions

Disruptive school students have a negative influence on others Students who are noisy and

disobedient should be grouped together and taught separately.

Do you agree or disagree?

If you look at this question, you should see that it is complex – as are most IELTS questions It is complex because it contains different parts There is the background info Disruptive school studentshave a negative influence on others, the proposition Students who are noisy and disobedient should

My best suggestion is that with questions such as these you should make sure that your intro identifiesboth what I call here thebackground and the proposition This may mean your introduction is slightly longer, but it should ensure that you answer the complete question If you don’t, you may lose on TaskResponse and Coherence

Repeating the question

A second problem you may face is that you simply “repeat the question” This is serious because if you use the same wording as the question, the examiner may simply delete those words You think you have written 260 words, but in fact it is only230 words There will be penalised on Task Response– heavily

Tip: learn the skill of summary writing

A useful (perhaps necessary) skill here is the skill of summarising To do this, you need to understandthat you can use words from the question – sometimes you have no choice as the word used is simplythe correct word and it would be a mistake to change it What you should not do is repeat whole blocks

of words How can you do this in an exam? Try this technique

 Read the question

 Note key words – think of any synonyms

 Rewrite the question from those words without looking at the question (if you do, it is much harder

not to repeat things)

 Look back at the question to see if you have covered all the main points

You may find this easier, if you have “planned vocabulary”earlier

Exercise – test your summary skills

Look at this question and then read my summary notes Can you write an introduction using thosenotes – or your own words

Disruptive school students have a negative influence on others Students who are noisy and

disobedient should be grouped together and taught separately.

Do you agree or disagree?

Notes

My own version uses some original words from the question and some phrases of my own I wrote itlooking at these notes Some words I use, some I don’t and some others I change These are just notes

 disruptive – [create disturbance – synonym]

 school children – [school children – can’t think of another word – pupils(?)]

 do not pay attention to the teacher [noisy and disobedient]

 bad effect – [negative influence on others – synonym]

 by themselves – [separately – synonym]

 have own class – [grouped together – similar idea ]

A serious problem is caused in many schools by children who not only do not pay attention to their teacher but also disrupt their classmates One proposed solution is to place these

children in separate classes to minimise disruption While there is something to be said for this, I do not believe that it is practical.

Exercise – write the question

Here’s an exercise you can try with one of your own essays Read the essay introduction and thenwrite the question If you have written the intro well,you should also be able to rewrite the question

The introduction

There is some dispute whether the best method of assessing students is to use examinations or some form of continuous assessment This is a complex issue and my belief is that there is probably no one method that applies to all educational systems.

See the question Some people believe that exams are an inappropriate way of measuring

students’ performance and should be replaced by continuous assessment Do you agree

or disagree with this view?

Outlining your position – looking forwards

My other very strong suggestion for the introduction is to outline your position This is the part that looks forward to the rest of the essay The reason for doing this is that to get a high score for

Coherence and Task Response, you need to have a consistent position throughout the essay and thatincludes the intro

Two different approaches

There are different ways of outlining your position in an introduction Broadly, these fall into two

categories – either you give your answer/opinion or you simply say how you will approach the

question Both can work

1.Give the answer at the beginning

Here you state what you think in the intro For example:

Some people believe that parents should teach children how to be good members of society Others,however, believe that school is the place to learn this Discuss both views and give your opinion

A child’s education has never been about learning information and basic skills only It has always included teaching the next generation how to be good members of society Therefore this cannot be the responsibility of the parents alone (Cambridge IELTS 8 – model answer)

More complex examples may also include reference to the reasons for the point of view This addscoherence to the essay by linking forward to the main paras Though if you want to do this you shouldnormally try to use only a few words The content is for the main paras

2.Say how you will approach the question

Here you don’t give your opinion up front, you just say how you will approach the question:

Some believe museums should entertain people, while others believe their purpose is to

educate Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

Museums often represent different things to different people On the one hand, many people feel a museum’s primary purpose is to entertain However, others feel they function to house an educational

resource The merits of both arguments will be analyzed before a conclusion is decided upon

How many sentences?

There is no answer to this It is perfectly possible to write a good intro to an IELTS essay in 2

sentences It is also possible to write 4 sentences Two points to note though are:

1 the introduction is a map to the essay – you want to spend as much time writing the content of theessay as as possible The more time you spend on the intro, the less you have for the content

2 some questions are more complex than others and have 2 parts These questions may need longerintroductions

Further reading

An excellent in tr o d u ct i o n to in tr odu ct io n s is to be found at Writefix You may need to decide to

adapt the advice there for exams

You may also want to play with the Ess a y M a p at readwritethink: it’s an interesting tool that shows youhow the different parts of an essay fit together