How to write a good IELTS Writing Task 2 Part 1

Most students find essay writing difficult, however it is frequently used in schools and universities to evaluate students’ knowledge and their ability to present it in a coherent way. It requires the use of many skills; analysis, interpretation, and expression Writing an essay in an examination is an even more difficult task as students have little time to think and produce an essay and exam nerves may cause people to not work as well as they could if they were not working under pressure.

What follows is my guide to the five simple steps that I use to help make the task of writing an essay in an examination a little easier.

Step 1 - Be Prepared

Before you even go into the exam room think about the common sorts of questions and topics that could be asked. The topics I will consider in future posting will all be common IELTS topics. The topics covered will be: 

• Education
• Technology
• Culture
• Society
• Global issues

Before actually starting to write an essay it is important to understand the common types of question words so that you can apply them. Below is a table of Explanations of common words found in Essay Titles (these are used in academic essays and some are not often used often in the IELTS test whereas others are a lot more common and occur almost every week!). Understanding the key question words helps candidates to answer the question fully. 

COMPARE	Look for similarities and differences, and perhaps reach a conclusion about which is best.
CONTRAST	Look at differences and conclude with which is best
CRITICISE	Give your judgement about the truth of facts, the merits of theories and opinions. Provide evidence to support your ideas.
DEFINE	Set down the precise meaning of a word or phrase and look at different definitions of the same thing.
DESCRIBE	Give a detailed or graphic account
DISCUSS	Give reasons for and against.
EVALUATE	Make an appraisal on the value of something
EXPLAIN	Give reasons for
ILLUSTRATE	Give examples to support something
INTERPRET	Clarify the meaning of something, and give your own judgement.
OUTLINE	Give the main features of something.

Step 2 - Tackling the question

Essay titles can appear impossible at first. Do not allow yourself to be put off by a hard or difficult essay title. Think about the question and what it is asking. Sometimes it is easier to break the question down into smaller questions. Avoid the trap of simply writing everything you know about the topic and remember to keep the essay on topic. Answer the question that has been asked and not the question you would like to have been asked!

I always try to break a question down into smaller questions and the answers for these questions are very useful when it comes to writing my introductions.

I will then paraphrase the main question so that I can answer it directly and this helps me to stay on topic.

Example one

Most people think that students should evaluate their schools and teachers. Do you agree or disagree?

First break the question down into smaller questions: 

• What is meant by students?
• What is meant by evaluate?

 For this type of essay it is important to decide whether:

You agree that evaluations of teachers and schools by students are a good idea and why 

Or            

You disagree that evaluations of teachers and schools by students is a bad idea and why.

Example two

Technology is always changing and has a direct effect on our daily lives. The internet is perhaps the most important invention ever, what do you believe to be more important?

The first sentence is just a general statement to introduce the topic of technology. First break the question down into smaller questions: 

• What is meant by technology?
• Is there any other type of technology that is more important than the Internet?

For this essay it is important to decide whether:

The Internet is the most important invention ever and why.

Or  

          

There are other technologies that are more important than the Internet. What they are and why they are more important.  

Example three

More and more students are choosing to leave their own countries and educational systems and go and study overseas. Do you think this is a good or bad thing?

First break the question down into smaller questions: 

• What countries do people go abroad to study in?
• What kind of students study abroad?
• Why do they study overseas?

 For this essay it is important to decide whether:

Studying abroad is beneficial for students and explain why

Or            

Studying abroad brings no great benefits and explain why 

Example four

Lots of students are choosing to study abroad either at school or at university. Discuss the benefits and disadvantages of overseas studies.

Give reasons for your answer and include relevant examples from your own experience and knowledge. 

This question is very different from example three which just wants an answer explaining whether overseas study is good or bad. This question although it looks very similar to question three and is asking for an essay giving both the benefits and disadvantages of studying abroad. 

First break the question down into smaller questions: 

• What countries do people go abroad to study in?
• Why do they study overseas?
• What are the benefits of studying abroad?
• What disadvantages are there of studying overseas?

For this essay it is important to decide whether:

This is an argument, discussion, or explanation essay: This example is a discussion essay

What information the question requires for an appropriate answer.

What the benefits are of studying in another country and what the drawbacks are

And

         

What the drawbacks are of studying overseas

Example five 

How has your thinking been influenced by the community around you? 

First break the question down into smaller questions: 

• What does the community consist of?
• Has the community influenced you?
• How has the community affected you?

For this essay it is important to decide whether:

This is an argument, discussion, or explanation essay: This example is an explanation essay

What information the question requires for an appropriate answer.

How your thinking been influenced by the community and how it has affected you.

Example six 

Technology can bring many benefits, however it can also cause problems. Should people focus on the advantages that technology gives or on the disadvantages?

First break the question down into smaller questions: 

• How do we benefit from technology?
• What are some of the benefits?
• What disadvantages are there of technology?
• Do the benefits outweigh the disadvantages?

For this essay it is important to decide whether:

This is an argument, discussion, or explanation essay: This example is an argument essay

Technology is of great benefit and people should ignore the problems.

Or

            

Technology is sometimes bad and that people should consider the problems that technology causes.

Exam tip

Everyone answers an essay question in a different way and there is no single correct answer as long as your essay is logical and your ideas are supported. If everyone approached every task in the same way the world would be a very boring place!  

Don't forget to read the second part to this blog post = the next steps in good essay writing.

The Big Writing Mistakes

In this post I will cover what I think are some of the major mistakes that IELTS candidates make when it comes to writing tasks one and two. There are some things that candidates do again and again and I can only assume that there is some IELTS preparation school somewhere that is giving out bad advice that they think will benefit candidates.

1 Memorising Chunks of English

The first problem I will cover is the memorising of “chunks” of English that a candidate just inserts into their writing. It is very obvious to spot this kind of behaviour. Either the English will be far too general (that it could be used in any essay) or it will stand out as it will be grammatically perfect and this will not match the accuracy of grammar used in the rest of the essay. I know that certain IELTS tutorial schools teach candidates to rote learn an introduction or conclusion BUT if the examiner thinks that this has been done (and a section memorised) then you can lose marks.

Here is one example of a memorised chunk used as an introduction:

While some people think that overall this is an innovative solution to the problem, others have the opposite contention. I would have to conclude therefore that for all the reasons outlined above, the issue is still in a state of flux and that there is as of yet, still no simple answer that is readily available and applicable to all people and to suit all circumstances.

Here is another example which is slightly better (in that the candidate can at least put in the topics of the essay where required) but you can still see that it is a memorised paragraph and this would be very obvious if the rest of the essay was just not written to the same standard (and would have lots of very basic grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes!

Issues related to university education produce many advantages for everyone and have been continuously debated in many sections of modern society. Society is split on this topic, some prefer to see the inherently positive aspects of university education while others focus on the drawbacks. It might be possible here to elucidate some of the positives and negatives in this essay

TIP – do not memorise huge chunks of English to add into your essay. You can however learn some grammatical patterns to use e.g. Not only ….. but also…..

You can learn some quotations to add to your essay from famous people that might add support to your arguments and are particularly useful in introductions and conclusions.

Remember that memorising a paragraph is obvious and will negatively effect your score.

Solution: Make sure you write in your own words and if you must memorise, memorise patterns or short quotes NOT whole paragraphs.

2 Copying from the Question

Let’s have a look at a very general education related question:

Lots of students are choosing to study abroad either at school or at university. Discuss the benefits and disadvantages of overseas studies.

What happens (sometimes) is that candidates will copy from the question and say something like the following in their introduction (or conclusion):

I think that Lots of students are choosing to study abroad either at school or at university and there are many benefits and disadvantages of overseas studies.

Let’s look at that sentence again and highlight the bits that are copied directly from the question

I think that Lots of students are choosing to study abroad either at school or at university and there are many benefits and disadvantages of overseas studies.

Candidates sometimes also tend to copy parts of questions into their topic sentences:

Example Question 1: Choosing to study abroad either at school or at university has many benefits.

Again, let’s highlight the copied parts:

Choosing to study abroad either at school or at university has many benefits.

Example Question 2: On the other hand, choosing to study abroad either at school or at university has a lot of disadvantages.

We can again highlight the copied parts:

On the other hand, choosing to study abroad either at school or at university has a lot of disadvantages.

Candidates need to be able to paraphrase (write in their own words) or be able to use different synonyms (word that have the same or a similar meaning) to make their work different. Candidates can lose a lot of marks from copying from the questions!

Solution: learn how to paraphrase for example by leaning to turn active into passive (or vice versa). You can also broaden your vocabulary so that you don’t repeat yourself by using the same words all the time and this will make it a lot easier to paraphrase any question you may be asked

3 Not Writing enough

Task 1 requires candidates to write 150 words and task 2 requires 250 words. This is a minimum and will affect your score if you do not write enough. Candidates will be heavily penalised if they do not write enough and this could push what would otherwise be a good essay (and a good score) down one or two bands.

Solution: practice writing under timed conditions so that you can easily write the minimum in the time allowed.  You can also know how many words you write for each line and then you can very easily count how many words you have written quickly. Remember that phrases you have copied from the question will not be counted in your word count!

4 Not Answering the Question

This can happen in a number of ways and can take a few different forms. Sometimes it might be due to a misunderstanding of the question or it may be due to the candidate not having enough time to answer all the different parts of the question.

Some questions can have quite a few things to write about. For example, questions that require  you to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of something AND give your opinion; in this type of question you need to highlight three different things in your answer! If a candidate misses out just one thing, they will lose marks as though they had only answered half the question.

Sometimes candidates do read the question and go off on a tangent; they answer their own question which barely relates to the topic. Being able to answer the question as it is set if a vital academic skill and candidates should not try to answer their own question.

Solution: Read the question and make a plan before you start writing and you should be able to stay fully on topic.

5 Using the Wrong Structure

The final type of mistake is where the essay does not have the three parts that are required. All essays need an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. There are also heavy penalties for not using paragraphs or for writing ideas out using bullet points or other inappropriate ways (lists for example).

Solution: Practice being able to write in full paragraphs using topic sentences and support sentences. Make sure you leave a one line space between paragraphs so the examiner can easily see where each paragraph starts and finishes. 

How the Writing test is graded

We have already looked at an overview of the IELTS writing test  and this posting will look in more detail at how the writing test is graded.

It is really important for  candidates to understand how the test is scored because some mistakes can be  easily avoided by knowing exactly what the examiner is looking for and how the writing us graded.

Writing scores are calculated based on four different criteria, and each of the four different criteria will be given a score from 0 to 9. All the criteria count equally and your total score is the average of adding them all together and then dividing by four:

• Task response – How well (or how completely) candidates answer the question
• Coherence and cohesion – How well the piece of writing links together (flows), how good paragraphs usage is and whether sentences are linked well with good use of referencing.
• Lexical resource – Level and appropriate use of  vocabulary
• Grammatical range and accuracy – Mistakes in grammar and how difficult the structures are that are used in the piece of writing

These criteria are used to grade candidate writing and all examiners must mark any piece of writing in the same way. If you know anything about statistical research, this means that the examiners try to take an objective approach (in that different examiners would give the same marks to the same piece of writing) and thus the IELTS test is a reliable one!

One very common question I get asked by students is: “I heard that the IELTS test is easier at xxxxx (another IELTS test venue), is this true?” I have to promise all candidates that it does not matter at all where you take your test; all examiners grade consistently and the people responsible for the test go to great lengths to ensure that this is the case and that the marking is consistent and to the highest possible standard.

The details of the criteria for the scores are in the public domain and released by the British Council. All candidates would be advised to read through them. I will in any case take a look at the four different criteria. I will go into more detail in later posts so that you can really understand what the exam is looking for and can avoid many common mistakes.

If you wish to look at the publically available grading criteria, you can access them at the two links below:

• Public Version of the grading Criteria for Task 1
• Public version of the grading criteria for Task 2

The grading for task 1 and 2 are very similar but there are some differences, especially in the first category (Task response in Task 2 and Task achievement in Task 2) but all the other categories are the same for both task 1 and task 2.

Candidates sometimes tend to focus more on one or other of the criteria in their preparation (normally they tend to focus on grammar) and perhaps forget about the other ones (normally these will be cohesion and coherence and task achievement). It really is important to remember that all four criteria count equally and they all need to be thought about.

IELTS Scoring examples

As I said before, all writing scores are calculated based on the four different criteria (each being given a score from 0 to 9 with all the criteria counting equally towards your final score). 

Suppose that a candidate scores as follows:

• Task Response: 7
• Coherence: 7
• Lexical Resource: 7
• Grammar: 7

Their total score would be 7+7+7+7 = 28.

This score of 28 would be divided by 4 to give a final score of 7.

Let’s look at another more difficult example where a candidate does not use paragraphs and has not fully answered the question but that they overall have a good general level of ability in English when it comes to grammar and vocabulary. In this example,  suppose that the candidate scores as follows:

• Task Response: 5 - (Candidate did not answer the question fully and they only answered half of it)
• Coherence: 5 - (Candidate did not use paragraphs)
• Lexical Resource: 7 - (Candidate used vocabulary well and used some less common terms)
• Grammar: 7 - (Candidate has a mix of sentences with ability to use complex sentences as well)

This candidate’s total score would be 5+5+7+7 = 24  

This score would be 24 divided by 4 to give a final score of 6.

As you should be able to see, good grammar and vocabulary are not enough; candidates must focus on all the criteria as they write. To get a target score of 6.5 (which is the minimum score for many universities); candidates need to get a 7 in at least three of the four criteria. As we will see, there are some things like not being able to write enough that will really negatively affect your Task Response score and we will, in future posts look at all the grading criteria in more detail but I hope you can see that the criteria are not simple. Task response for example is not only about answering the question, it also measures candidate ability to extend and support main ideas and maintain a clear position throughout the essay.