IELTS Essay Tips to Write a Good IELTS Writing Task 2 Essay
Hi, I’m Mikey.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson, you can learn how to write
an IELTS task two essay.
Task two in the IELTS writing exam is the
biggest challenge in IELTS for many students.
You have 40 minutes to write an essay, which
could be on almost any topic.
In this lesson, you’ll see a model question
and a possible answer to it.
You’ll learn how to write your own IELTS
essay, and we’ll share useful tips to help
you improve your IELTS writing score.
Let’s start with our sample question:
Some people believe that everyone should be
free to make their own lifestyle choices,
even if those choices are unhealthy.
Other people think that the government should
intervene to influence people’s choices,
for example by putting high taxes on unhealthy
products.
Discuss both of these views and give your
own opinion.
Give reasons for your answer and include any
relevant examples from your own knowledge
or experience.
So, where do you start?
You’re under time pressure in the IELTS
writing exam.
This means that many IELTS candidates read
the task quickly and start writing as fast
as possible.
It’s understandable, but it’s also a mistake.
To write a good answer, you need to understand
the task well, and you need to have a plan
for what you’re going to write.
It’s easy to misunderstand the question,
or to misunderstand a key word in the question.
This will hurt your score.
So, you need to analyse the task.
How can you do this?
First, read the question and try to explain
what it’s asking in your own words.
Look at our sample question again.
Could you rephrase this question in your own
words?
Try to make it as simple as you can.
Think about it.
Here are some suggestions:
Should people be allowed to make their own lifestyle
choices, even if they’re very unhealthy?
Should the government try to make people live
healthier lives, even if it means that people
lose some personal freedom?
Of course, there are other possibilities.
This is an important step; if you don’t
have any ideas here, it suggests you haven’t
understood the question fully.
That means you need to go back and read it
again, and think about it more.
What’s next?
Secondly, you need to identify how many things
the task is asking you to do.
Not all IELTS questions are the same.
Some questions ask you to do one or two things.
Other questions ask you to do three or four
things.
What about here?
How many things is this question asking you
to do?
You have to ‘discuss both of these views’.
That means you need to discuss the idea that
everyone should be free to make their own
lifestyle choices, and you also need to discuss
the idea that the government should intervene
to influence people’s choices.
You need to give your own opinion, so you
need to reach a conclusion about which viewpoint
you agree with.
Finally, you need to give reasons for your
answer and include relevant examples.
So, you need to do four things here.
When you read the question in your IELTS exam,
add numbers to the task, like this.
This way, you can check when you’re planning
or writing, and make sure you aren’t leaving
anything out.
Let’s review: when you analyse the task,
you should try to rephrase the question in
your own words, and then work out how many
things you need to do.
What comes next?
This is a super-important step, even if you
feel that you don’t have time.
If you don’t plan, it’s hard to write
a clear, well-organised essay.
This makes it difficult to get higher scores.
When planning, you need to:
One: decide what your conclusion is going
to be.
Two: decide how many body paragraphs you’re
going to have.
Let’s think about these steps for our sample
question.
There are three basic conclusions you can
reach here.
You could say that people are free to make
whatever unhealthy choices they want, and
the government should not get involved.
You could say that the government should intervene
to influence people’s decisions, and that
people are not free to make absolutely any
bad choices they want.
Or, you could go for a balanced conclusion,
where your position is a compromise between
both sides.
What do you think?
If you were writing this essay, what would
your conclusion be?
Remember that one conclusion isn’t better
than another.
You can say whatever you want.
However, you should know what your conclusion
is before you go any further.
Otherwise, it’s impossible to make a coherent
plan.
Next, you need to plan your body paragraphs.
An important point: each body paragraph should
have one main point, and only one main point.
Don’t put many different ideas in one paragraph.
You also need to make sure your body paragraphs
are consistent with your conclusion.
If your conclusion is that people are free
to make unhealthy choices, then you can’t
include a body paragraph talking about the
negative effects of unhealthy lifestyle choices.
Let’s look at three sample plans:
Body paragraph 1: people are free to decide
what to do with their own bodies
Body paragraph 2: it’s not the government’s
job to be a parent to people
Conclusion: people are free to make whatever
unhealthy choices they want
Here’s another possibility:
Body paragraph 1: people’s unhealthy choices
have a negative effect on other people and
society as a whole
Body paragraph 2: the government should make
unhealthy lifestyle choices expensive, difficult
or illegal
Conclusion: people are not free to make any
unhealthy choices they want, and the government
has a duty to intervene
Finally, here’s a third possible plan:
Body paragraph 1: people are free to decide
what to do with their own bodies
Body paragraph 2: people’s unhealthy choices
have a negative effect on other people and
society as a whole
Body paragraph 3: the government should encourage
healthier choices, and discourage less healthy
ones
Conclusion: people are free to make whatever
unhealthy choices they want, but the government
should also push people towards making healthier
choices
Which plan is better?
They’re all good plans.
One isn’t better than another.
And, of course, there are many other possibilities!
It depends on the ideas you have.
For this lesson, we’re going to use the
third plan to write a model IELTS essay.
Let’s review quickly: your plan needs to
do two things.
One: your plan needs to be consistent with
your conclusion, so that all your ideas support
your final point.
Two: you need to have one (and only one) main
idea in each body paragraph.
At this point, you’re ready for the next
step.
There are three things you can do in your
introduction:
First, you can provide a ‘hook’: something
which shows why the topic you’re writing
about is interesting or relevant.
This could be some background information,
a rhetorical question, an interesting fact,
or something similar.
Secondly, you can reframe the question to
show how you are going to approach it, and
how you are interpreting the key ideas in
the task.
Finally, you need to give an indication of
what your essay will talk about, and what
your conclusion will be.
The first part is the least important.
If you can think of a good hook, great!
If not, don’t worry about it.
The second part—reframing the question—is
important if you’re aiming for higher scores.
If you’re aiming for a lower score, you
don’t have to do this.
Be careful with reframing and paraphrasing;
many IELTS candidates have problems with this.
Not doing it at all is better than doing it
badly.
The third part is essential.
Your introduction must signal which direction
you intend to take, and what your conclusion
will be.
This shows the examiner that you have a coherent
plan, and you know where you are going.
Let’s look now at a model introduction:
Are you free to destroy your own health?
If I want to smoke 60 cigarettes a day, eat
fast food for every meal, or drink a litre
of vodka daily, am I free to do so?
In this essay, I will show that while you
cannot stop people from making bad choices,
the government can and should play an active
role in encouraging people to live more healthily.
You can see all three parts in this introduction.
The first sentence is partly a hook, partly
a reframing of the question.
You’re using a rhetorical question to address
the topic directly.
The second sentence reframes the question
in terms of personal freedoms.
This is relevant, because in the body of the
essay we’re going to focus on this aspect
of the task.
The third sentence explains very clearly where
the essay will go.
Reading this, the examiner will know what
your conclusion is going to be.
That’s a good thing: in a coherent essay,
your conclusion should not be a surprise.
Let’s review quickly: when you write an
introduction, you absolutely must signal which
direction you’ll take, and what your conclusion
will be.
You should consider reframing the question
to highlight the ideas you want to focus on
in your essay.
You can optionally include a hook or some
background information, but it isn’t necessary.
After your introduction, you need to move
on to your body paragraphs.
Start your body paragraph by writing a topic
sentence.
The topic sentence summarises the main idea
of your paragraph.
Let’s remember the plan we’re using:
So, our topic sentence for the first body
paragraph could be the sentence from the plan:
People are free to decide what to do with
their own bodies.
Or, you could say something more sophisticated,
like:
People frequently make self-destructive choices,
and to a certain extent they should be free
to do so.
This is better, not only because it uses more
advanced grammar and vocabulary, but also
because it also signals the conclusion: people
are free to make bad choices, but that freedom
has limits.
After your topic sentence, you need to develop
your idea by going into more detail.
For example:
Choosing what to eat or drink, how much exercise
to do, how many hours to sleep, and whether
to smoke or not are personal matters and very
basic freedoms.
This is fundamentally the same idea as the
topic sentence, but more detailed.
Where the topic sentence is general, the second
sentence is more specific.
If possible, add an example to support your
point, like this:
For example, consider a man who does no exercise
and regularly eats large amounts of processed
junk food.
His habits are clearly unhealthy, but equally
clearly they are his decisions to make.
You can see that the paragraph starts with
a generalisation, and then gets more and more
specific.
This is a good pattern to follow in your body
paragraphs.
Finally, it’s good to end your paragraph
with a mini-conclusion which restates the
central idea of the paragraph:
It is hard even to imagine a world in which
people are forced to exercise regularly, or
prevented from eating what they wanted; the
idea is manifestly ridiculous.
So, in the last sentence you’re going back
to generalisation, but using the specific
ideas you mentioned in the paragraph.
Maybe you’re thinking, “That’s easy
for you, but I don’t have the vocabulary
to write something like that.”
Maybe, maybe not, but you can still follow
the same ideas.
Start with a topic sentence, go into more
detail, add an example if possible, and then
restate the central idea of the paragraph
at the end.
Follow the same structure for your remaining
body paragraphs, and then it’s time to write
your conclusion.
When writing a conclusion, you need to do
two things:
One: state your opinion clearly.
Two: connect all of the key ideas from the
task that you’ve discussed in your body
paragraphs.
Start your conclusion with a very clear, direct
statement of your opinion.
For example:
I strongly agree that everyone should be free
to make their own lifestyle choices, including
unhealthy choices.
The government should do more to discourage
people from making unhealthy lifestyle choices.
Both of the views expressed in the question
are correct.
This shows the examiner that you’re addressing
the question directly and that you have a
clear opinion.
This has a big effect on your IELTS writing
score.
Next, you need to connect the key ideas from
the task that you’ve discussed in your body
paragraphs.
Be careful not to simply repeat ideas.
Look at a model conclusion now:
Both of the views expressed in the question
are correct.
People are, and should be, free to make unhealthy
lifestyle choices if they want to.
However, because of the wider impact of such
choices, the government also has a responsibility
to encourage healthier lifestyles and disincentivise
unhealthy habits.
You can see that we cover the idea of personal
freedom from paragraph one, the idea that
individual choices have broader consequences
from paragraph two, and the idea that the
government should encourage people to make
healthier choices from paragraph three.
This is a strong conclusion, because it provides
a clear position, and also connects everything
together in a coherent way.
You can see the full text of the model essay
on our website: Oxford Online English dot
com.
There’s a link underneath the video.
We have a question for you: what topics do
you find easiest or most difficult to write
about in IELTS essay questions?
Please let us know your ideas in the comments!
Thanks for watching!
See you next time!