How To Write Perfect IELTS Essays

Table of Contents
I.

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1

II. The Marking Criteria And How To Score Band 5, 6, 7, 8 For Each Criterion ......... 4
1) Task Response ....................................................................................................... 4
2) Coherence and Cohesion (C&C) ........................................................................... 5
3) Lexical Resource ................................................................................................... 7
4) Grammatical Range and Accuracy (GRAA) ......................................................... 8
5) Band Score Calculation ......................................................................................... 9
III. How To Perfectly Fulfill Each Criterion Of the Writing Test ................................ 10
1.

Task Response ..................................................................................................... 10
a.

Basic Knowledge ............................................................................................. 10

b.

Brainstorming Techniques ............................................................................... 11

c.

From Plan To Paragraphs ................................................................................. 16

i.

Writing An Introduction................................................................................... 16

ii.

Writing A Conclusion ...................................................................................... 21

iii. Writing Main Body Paragraphs ....................................................................... 22
1)

Ideas and idea development ............................................................................. 22

2)

Application of idea development techniques ................................................... 25

2.

Coherence and Cohesion ..................................................................................... 28
a.

Basic Knowledge ............................................................................................. 28

b. Common Cohesive Devices And The Relationship Between Linking Devices
And Idea Development Techniques ........................................................................ 29
c.
3.

Natural linking devices .................................................................................... 32
Lexical Resource ................................................................................................. 34

a.

Basic Knowledge ............................................................................................. 34

b.

Topic Vocabulary............................................................................................. 35

1)

Populations and Accommodations ................................................................... 35

2)

Advertisements................................................................................................. 36

3)

Education ......................................................................................................... 36

4)

Jobs and Careers............................................................................................... 37

5)

Crimes .............................................................................................................. 38


6)

Environment ..................................................................................................... 38

7)

Globalisation .................................................................................................... 39

8)

Health ............................................................................................................... 39

9)

Technology....................................................................................................... 40

10)
4.

Transport ...................................................................................................... 41

Grammatical Range and Accuracy ...................................................................... 41
a.

Basic Knowledge ............................................................................................. 41

b.

Producing complex structures using cohesive devices .................................... 42

c.

Applying simple and complex structures to writing an essay .......................... 43

IV. Sample Essays And Essay Analysis ........................................................................ 45
1) Agree/Disagree Essay (balanced opinion) ........................................................... 45
2) Agree/Disagree Essay (Strong opinion) .............................................................. 48
3) Other Sample Essays (without analysis).............................................................. 51
i.

Discussion Questions ....................................................................................... 51

1)

Advertising ....................................................................................................... 51

2)

Animal Testing ................................................................................................. 53

3)

Economical Air Travel ..................................................................................... 54

4)

Crimes .............................................................................................................. 56

5)

Education ......................................................................................................... 57

ii.

Advantages/Disadvantages Questions ............................................................. 59

1)

Taking A Gap Year .......................................................................................... 59

2)

Unpaid Work .................................................................................................... 60

3)

Tests And Examinations .................................................................................. 61

iii. Agree/Disagree Questions................................................................................ 63
1)

Newspapers And Online News ........................................................................ 63

2)

Gender And University .................................................................................... 65

iv. Causes/Solutions Question ............................................................................... 66
Housing Shortage .................................................................................................... 66
v.

Positive/Negative Question .............................................................................. 68

Globalisation ........................................................................................................... 68
vi. Two-Part Questions.......................................................................................... 69


1)

Child Education................................................................................................ 69

2)

Unlimited Car Use ........................................................................................... 71

3)

Children’s Lifestyles ........................................................................................ 72

4)

Fashion ............................................................................................................. 73


I.

Introduction

About the author
When I was in high school, I found
it extremely challenging to learn
English.

At

that

time,

my

knowledge of the language confined
to simple words and I could only
construct simple sentences. After I
graduated from high school, I
intended to study at RMIT which is
an international university. My
university

requires

an

IELTS

certificate with an overall band
score of 6.5 in order to be qualified
for bachelor programs. I therefore
spent two months preparing for IELTS. I used to think that it is impossible for a
person like me to achieve band 6.5 for IELTS within only two months. But
finally, I did. My writing score at that time was 6.0.

Actually, I was not good at writing at all. Because of this, I faced various
problems with writing reports in my university. I also struggled with the final
exams when I had to think and write quickly. As a result, after my first semester
in university, I spent three weeks learning academic writing. I chose to study
IELTS writing because I think it can help me with any kind of academic writing.
After a period of working hard and being determined, my writing skills
significantly improved. One month later, I took IELTS again. My overall score
was 7.5 with writing being 8.0.
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My writing style is concise and effective. I do not try to use uncommon words in
my essays, but I focus on the real content instead. Also, I always try to make my
essays as easy to understand as possible. The reason for this is that I believe that
the primary purpose of writing is to communicate something to someone, so we
need to make sure that our readers understand what we write. Finally, I believe
that my approach to writing is suitable for many learners, because they do not
need to learn so many difficult words and phrases but they can still get a high
writing score.
What is the purpose of this book?
Writing is considered by many IELTS learners as the most difficult skill in the
test. In IELTS writing (Academic), candidates are required to complete two
tasks. The first one is to write a report to a university lecturer, and the minimum
length of the report is 150 words. The second task requires candidates to write an
essay about a given topic, and the minimum length is 250 words.
This book is a complete guidance as to how to achieve a high score in the writing
test. The focus of the book will be on Task 2. The reasons for this are that Task 2
is worth more marks than Task 1, and that learners often face more difficulties in

Task 2 than in Task 1.
Who is this book for?
Since this book specialises in IELTS writing, all IELTS learners can use it.
However, the book is especially useful for those who want a band 6.5 or higher
in writing. For those whose target is below 6.0, it is recommended that you try to
improve your overall level of English first.

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The brief content of the book
Currently, there are many approaches to IELTS writing, but this book introduces
a totally new and simple approach to the readers.
IELTS learners usually hold various mistaken beliefs as to how to get a high
score in writing. Some of them believe that we will get a high score if we use a
variety of academic words, while others think that we need to have a complete
masterpiece if we want a really high score for writing.
This book will address all of these beliefs and prove that achieving a writing
score higher than 7 is not that difficult. All you need is to meet all of the
requirements of writing. These requirements include a fully developed response,
a good essay structure, a sufficient range of topic vocabulary, and a number of
error-free sentences. The book will show you how to fulfill each of these
requirements.

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II.

The Marking Criteria And How To Score Band 5, 6,
7, 8 For Each Criterion

It is true that a large number of IELTS learners have problems with writing, even
when their grammar is relatively good. During the time I learned about IELTS, I
realized that many people do not thoroughly understand the IELTS marking
criteria, and even people who scored 7.0 for writing face this situation. This
section will help you have a better understanding of the marking criteria and
what you can do to get a high writing score.
*Note: you can find the complete IELTS Writing band score descriptors on the
official web page of British Council.

1) Task Response
First, you need to clearly understand the topic and make sure that you are directly
answering the question. If you can do this, your score for Task Response will be
band 5 or above. So what can you do next to increase your score further? The
answer is that you should clearly express your opinion. For instance, the question
asks whether you agree or disagree with an opinion, and you responded that you
completely agree with the opinion, so throughout the essay you have to show
your "agreement" to the readers. If you said that you agree that playing games is
good for children, but then you gave many harmful effects of playing games,
then your essay would lose lots of marks. After you complete the main body
paragraphs, you will reach your conclusion. In the conclusion, you should again
clearly state your opinion so that the readers will not be confused.

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After you are confident that you answered the question directly and your opinion
is clear, you can get band 6 for this criterion. The next step to rise your score to
band 7 is to focus on the main body paragraphs of the essay. We will take an
example of a discussion essay where you are required to discuss both views of
the topic. Assume that you have two main body paragraphs, and you talk about
one view in your first paragraph, and you talk about the other in the second
paragraph. In the first main body paragraph, you should have one or some
supporting ideas for the first view. For each of the ideas, you should fully,
specifically and logically develop it. So what can you do to make your idea
specific and fully developed? For example, your idea is "money is important
because it helps people meet their basic needs". Clearly, the readers can ask you
that ‘what are basic needs?’. So in this case you need to give an example of basic
needs. Basically, for each idea, you should try to analyse it carefully, until it is so
clear that no further analysis is needed. This means it is not necessary to give
examples for every single idea.
So what is the difference between band 7 and band 8 for Task Response? The
answer to this question is simple. People who score band 7 did not fully follow
my instructions above. This means they have tried to give supporting ideas, but
some of the ideas might lack focus or not sufficiently developed.
To sum up, you will be likely to get a band 8 for Task Response if you fully
follow the above instructions.

2) Coherence and Cohesion (C&C)
Coherence is the way you structure your writing. In other words, it is about how
many paragraphs you have, and what the purpose of each paragraph is. The
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examiner assesses your coherence in terms of whether you structure your essay
logically and whether the essay is easy to follow. With regards to cohesion, it
deals with your ability to connect different ideas in a paragraph.
If you write an essay without paragraphing, your essay will be considered to be
incoherent. To get a band 5 for C&C, you have to separate your response into
different paragraphs. Band-5 writers usually cannot link ideas skillfully, they can
just use simple linking devices like ‘therefore, however, as a result’ to link ideas
together. They also tend to use these words wrongly or repetitively because they
do not know other linking devices.
In order to reach band 6, writers have to clearly separate their essay into
introduction, main body and conclusion. The body also needs to be divided into
two or three paragraphs (but my advice is that you should divide your main body
into two paragraphs only). In terms of cohesion, band-6 writers have the ability
to link the ideas quite effectively, and their use of linking words is usually
accurate. However, they tend to over/under-use linking devices, or some uses
may be inappropriate.
 Referencing and Substitution: Using linking words is not the only way to
link ideas together, because you can use more advanced techniques to link
your ideas. Two of them are called Referencing and Substitution. These are
often known as natural linking, and they will be discussed in the next
sections.
People who get band 6 for C&C usually do not know how to use Referencing and
Substitution, or they tend to use them inaccurately.
In order to achieve band 7 for C&C, the writer needs to use paragraphs
effectively, which helps readers understand the purpose of each paragraph
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clearly. In each of the paragraphs, the writer should have a clear topic sentence so
that the readers can understand the main idea of the paragraph even when they do
not read the whole paragraph. In terms of cohesion, band-7 writers are able to use
linking words skillfully. In this band score, only a limited use of referencing and
substitution is needed.
To increase the score for C&C to band 8, you should be able to do all the things
that band-7 writers can do. Besides, you should use linking devices flexibly,
meaning that you should not use the same linking word so many times (overuse).
Occasionally, you should use referencing and substitution instead of normal
linking words. However, you do not need to use referencing and substitution too
often, just using them sometimes is enough.

3) Lexical Resource
Lexical Resource (LR) is simply the range of vocabulary that you use in your
essay.
In order to get band 5 for LR, the writers need a range of vocabulary which is
enough for them to communicate. However, their range of vocabulary is very
limited, and this leads to them repeating the same words many times, and they
make a lot of mistakes with word choice, word formation and/or spelling. These
mistakes make their essay difficult to understand, and therefore it is difficult for
the readers to understand what they write.
People getting band 6 for LR are those who can use a sufficient range of topic
vocabulary to answer the question. However, the range is still limited, and
normally they will make mistakes with word choice and collocations, because
they try to use so many uncommon words.

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To reach band 7, the writers need to be able to use lexical items more naturally
and accurately, and collocations are used skillfully and nearly similar to native
speakers. They will make fewer mistakes than those who get band 6, but they
will still make some errors with word choice, word formation and/or spelling.
For band 8, the writers need to use lexical items accurately and appropriately,
and the range of vocabulary is sufficient to communicate information to the
readers. There will be some flexibility in the use of words, meaning that they use
synonyms to express the same idea, or they can change the same word to a
different form. They also rarely make errors, and these are just minor.

4) Grammatical Range and Accuracy (GRAA)
Grammatical range is your ability to diversify the sentence structures you use,
and grammatical accuracy is your ability to control the number of errors you
make.
People who get band 5 for GRAA will make many mistakes with grammar, and
the number of structures they use will also be limited. Punctuation is also an
important part of an essay, since it can assist the understandability of the essay.
Band-5 writers tend to occasionally make mistakes with punctuation.
The main difference between band-5 and band-6 writers still lies on the number
of errors they make. When we read a band-6 essay, we can easily see that it
contains fewer errors than the band-5 one. People who achieve band 6 also know
how to use a mix of simple and complex structures, but some of them are
erroneous. However, these errors are quite small and do not affect understanding.
To reach band 7, the number of errors made will be significantly lower than that
of band 6. Band-7 writers will be able to use relative clauses, ‘if’ clauses and
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other complex structures effectively. The majority of their sentences are errorfree, and the errors they make are minor, such as misuse of prepositions, articles
and/or countable/uncountable nouns.
Band-8 writers make almost no error. However, one or two minor error is still
acceptable in this band score, such as misuse of prepositions or articles. Also, it
is worth remembering that one minor mistake will not affect your score, but
many minor mistakes will.

5) Band Score Calculation
The examiners will give you a score for each of the four components. These four
scores will be used to calculate the average score. This average score is the
overall band score of your essay. There will be no half band for each component
score. It is only the overall score that can be in half bands. For example, if your
component scores are 7 7 8 8, the overall band score will be 7.5. And if the
component scores are 7 8 8 8, the overall score will be rounded up to 8.0.
Similarly, the overall score will be rounded up to 7.5 if your component scores
are 7 7 7 8.

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III. How To Perfectly Fulfill Each Criterion Of the
Writing Test
The previous section gives you a basic understanding of what you can do to
reach your desired band score. Now, this section will specifically give you

instructions on how to write a good essay. The instructions will be based on the
IELTS marking criteria. In this way, after this section, you will be able to meet
the IELTS examiner’s requirements, and in turn you will get your desired score.

1. Task Response
a. Basic Knowledge
First, in order to get a high score for writing, you definitely should not go offtopic. Going off-topic means you write something completely unrelated to the
topic that you are required to write about.
In IELTS, if you write a response that is off-topic, the examiner will judge that
you did not directly answer the question and complete the task. Therefore, the
first important thing that you need to do is to read the question carefully to
understand what you are required to do.
*Important note: You should pay special attention to words and phrases like:
 ‘money is important’
 ‘a job with a high salary is important’.
 The phrase ‘money is important’ means that you should focus on the
importance of money in general. In this case, you should tell the readers
how money is important.
 Meanwhile, ‘a job with a high salary is important’ means that you should
concentrate on why the job with a high salary is important. For example,
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you can say something like ‘A well-paid job gives people incentives to
work hard, and it reflects people’s qualifications’.
Second, you need to make sure that your opinion is clear throughout the essay.
For example, if you state in the introduction that you totally agree with a
statement, you cannot change your opinion to ‘disagree’, or you will lose marks

for this section.
Finally, remember that you will get a low score if you just keep giving ideas
without any explanation. Your ideas must be developed and supported with
relevant explanations and/or examples.

b. Brainstorming Techniques
A common problem that many learners face is that they do not have enough ideas
to write, or they are unable to develop their ideas. As a result, they write about
the same thing from one sentence to another, and no new information is given.
The failure in developing ideas will be addressed if you have a good essay plan.
In IELTS, there is no limit on the number of ideas that you use in supporting
your view. However, you need to remember two things. First, you must have
enough ideas to address all parts of the question. For example, if you are given a
discussion essay, you have to use enough ideas to discuss both views (i.e at least
one idea for each view). Second, remember that you need to develop your idea in
depth after stating it.
For these reasons, I recommend that you have two ideas for each of your main
body paragraphs. If you have one idea for a main body paragraph, you may face
the situation where you cannot develop your idea further, and as a result you will
talk about the same thing throughout your paragraph. The following is an
example of this situation:
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‘Writing is the most challenging skill in IELTS. Many students find it difficult to
write an essay. This skill is extremely difficult for us to master. We may face
various difficulties in writing an essay.’
If you have three ideas for a main body paragraph, you may face the situation

where you have so many ideas but none of them is fully developed.
Before you start writing the essay, you should firstly plan your ideas. A good
essay plan often leads to a good essay. The following are the techniques that you
can apply to brainstorming your ideas.
In IELTS writing, you are asked about topics on human beings and society.
Therefore, a good way to think about ideas is to think about the effects of
something on humans and society as a whole. Another method is to think about
the nearest and simplest things around you. Remember that you will not get
additional marks for good ideas, and the examiner only concerns about your level
of English. Therefore, simple and easy-to-develop ideas would be the best choice
if you want a high score.
Technique 1: think about the effects of something on humans (e.g you, your
family) and society
Topic: In some countries young people are encouraged to work or travel for
a year between finishing high school and starting university studies.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for young people who decide to do
this.
Clearly, this topic requires us to analyse both the advantages and disadvantages
of taking a gap year, so we will think about the advantages first.

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You can imagine that you are in this situation. If you work or travel for a year,
what do you think you will gain? You will need to gain two things, which
represent two advantages. Logically speaking, if you go to work, of course you
will gain an amount of work experience. Another thing that you may gain from
working is improvements in soft skills. If you travel, you will have a chance to

broaden your knowledge about the people and cultures from different parts of the
world. In addition, you will be able to significantly improve your foreign
languages if you travel abroad.
These are four possible advantages for a person in this situation. You may list all
of them on a piece of paper, but you will just need to use two of them in your
essay. The criteria for choosing the appropriate advantages are that whether you
can extend and develop the advantages you choose, and that whether you have a
sufficient range of vocabulary to develop them well.
After listing the advantages, now we continue with the disadvantages. Again,
suppose you are a student in this situation. When you are allowed to be off from
school for one year, what will happen to things around you (e.g your knowledge,
your academic skills, your incentives to study)?
For me, if I took a year off, I would forget some of my academic knowledge.
And if I worked for a year, I would gradually lose my incentive to pursue my
study. Travelling for one year can also make us feel lazy with work and study.
These are three possible disadvantages, and again, you will just need to choose
two of them to include in your essay.
This is my complete essay plan for this topic:

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 Advantages
 Acquire soft skills => example: communication skills
 Improve language skills =>explain: be better at listening and speaking in
English
 Disadvantages
 Forget some academic knowledge => example: be slower at calculation

 Lose incentive to study =>explain: because of earning money
As can be seen, my plan is short and succinct, and it is enough for a good essay.
You may notice that I always add an example or an explanation after one idea.
You will not get a high Task Response score if you only give ideas, but you have
to develop them. Therefore, you should develop your ideas either by giving an
example or by explaining them.
Technique 2: think about things around us
Some people believe that money is the most important factor for achieving
happiness. However, others believe that happiness has nothing to do with
money. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
This is an opinion question. For this question, you can either use a strong opinion
or a balanced opinion to answer. In this example, I will use a balanced opinion to
answer the question. We will learn about how to answer this kind of question
later. Up to now, you just need to know that a balanced opinion allows us to
write about both sides of the argument.
Before I plan my ideas, I intend to write a 4-paragraph essay. In the first main
body paragraph, I will talk about how money is important for achieving
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happiness. In the other main body paragraph, I will talk about how other things
are equally important for achieving happiness.
For this topic, you can firstly think about yourself. How can you feel happy in
your life? Are you struggling to earn money in order to buy things you want? Or
do you prefer spending time with your family? If you are happy in a way, there
are many other people who feel happy in the same way as you. So you are now
able to talk about one side of the argument.
Now, you continue to think about others around you. How do your friends feel

happy? Do they feel happy in the same way as you? If yes, think about another
friend who is different from you. Again, there are many people who feel happy in
the same way as your friend. So the way that friend feels happy allows you to
talk about the other side of the argument.
For me, I find it happy when I am able to spend time with my friends and family,
and I believe that many people also feel happy in that way. So in one of my main
body paragraphs, I will support the idea that ‘money is not the most important
factor for achieving happiness’.
Some of my friends, on the other hand, are trying to work hard to earn money, so
I will also support the idea that ‘money is important for achieving happiness’.
This is my complete essay plan for this topic:
Partly agree (money is important, but other factors are equally important)
 Money is important
 Helps people to meet basic needs => example: buy food, pay for bills
 Makes life easier => explain: we can use money to pay for healthcare,
high-quality education
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 Other factors are equally important
 Some people feel happy when they can pursue their passion => example:
artists
 For some individuals, relationships are more important than being wealthy
This essay plan allows me to mention both sides of the argument, and this is
called a balanced opinion.

c. From Plan To Paragraphs
In this section, we will learn how to write a complete essay using our essay plan.

Because of this, the section will be divided into a number of sub-sections.

i.

Writing An Introduction

In IELTS, we have various types of questions. Therefore, the introduction for
these types of questions is different from each other. But basically, we need two
sentences in an introduction. The first sentence will introduce the topic, and the
second one will directly answer the essay question. Now we will learn how to
write an introduction for each type of question.
 Opinion question (Agree/Disagree)
An opinion question may be answered by two main ways which are strong
opinion and balanced opinion. You have a strong opinion when you say that you
totally agree/disagree with a statement/opinion. You have a balanced opinion
when you say that you partly agree with a statement/opinion. Regardless of how
you answer the essay question, you have to make your opinion clear throughout
your essay. The introduction for opinion question comprises of two sentences.
The first one will paraphrase the question in order to introduce the topic, and the
second sentence will be the writer’s answer to the question given.
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 Use a strong opinion to answer the question
After stating the topic in the first sentence, you will express your strong opinion
in the second sentence by using adverbs such as totally/completely/fully. Your
answer to the question will be something like ‘I fully/totally/completely
agree/disagree with the idea that…’, or ‘I fully/totally/completely agree/disagree

with this idea (if the idea is already mentioned in the previous sentence)
-

Example

Topic: Many high-level positions in companies are filled by men even though
the workforce in many developed countries is more than 50 per cent female.
Companies should be required to allocate a certain percentage of these
positions to women. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Answer: In many organisations, it is common practice that the majority of
important positions are held by men. Personally, I totally agree/disagree with the
idea that companies should allocate a number of these positions to women.
To sum up, in order to write a strong-opinion answer, we need to find two pieces
of information in the question. The first one is the topic, and the second one is a
view/statement. Our task is to paraphrase the words in the question to state the
topic, and then we will state that whether we totally agree/disagree with the given
the statement. Sometimes the topic and the view are the same thing, so you
should read the question carefully before you write.
 Use a balanced opinion to answer the question
A balanced opinion is used when the writer both agrees and disagrees with a
statement. There are two ways of expressing a balanced opinion.

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One way is to use the structure ‘While I accept that/agree that…, I believe
that/think that…’ to mention both sides of the argument. This is applied when
you did not mention your view in your first sentence of the introduction. In this

case, the first sentence of the introduction is a mere introduction to the topic
without any mention of your view.
Another way is to use the phrase ‘I partly agree with this idea’. This is applied
when you have already mentioned about one view of the argument.
*Personally, I prefer the first approach to expressing a balanced opinion, since
you can make it clear that you will talk about two sides of the argument.
-

Example:

Topic: Some people believe that money is the most important factor for
achieving happiness. However, others believe that happiness has nothing to
do with money. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Answer:
Method 1: People have different views about whether money is the precondition
to experiencing a happy life. While I accept that money is a vital part of human
life, I believe that other factors are equally important for people’s happiness.
Method 2: Many people argue that money is the key factor for us to enjoy a
happy life. Personally, I partly agree with this idea, because I think other factors
are equally important.
 Discussion question (discuss both views and give your own opinion)
Basically, discussion question is very similar to the balanced-opinion answer to
agree/disagree question. The only difference is that we have to discuss two views
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but we have to choose only one view as our opinion. This means that we have
two views, one is other people’s view, and the other is our view. In

agree/disagree question (using balanced opinion), by contrast, we discuss two
views and both of them are our view.
For discussion question, we can use method 1 in expressing a balanced opinion
to write an introduction, meaning that we will apply the ‘While’ structure. The
only difference is that one of these two views must be other people’s view, and
the other view is ours. Therefore, the ‘while’ structure should be changed to
‘While some people believe/think that…, it seems to me that/I would argue that/I
think that…’.
-

Example:

Topic: Some people argue that teaching children of different abilities
together benefits all of them. Others believe that intelligent children should
be taught separately and given special treatment. Discuss both views and
give your own opinion
Answer: People have different views about whether we should separate
prominent children from ordinary ones. While some people believe that it is more
effective to give these individuals special treatment, I would argue that we should
give all students equal education opportunities.
 Problems/Solutions question or Causes/Solutions question
This question requires us to identify problems or causes of something and then
suggest some solutions.

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Like other types of question, we will have two sentences in the introduction. We

just need to say that there are some causes/problems, we do not need to specify
the causes/problems, and then we will say that there are some solutions.
-

Example:

Many of the cities are currently facing a serious housing shortage. What are
some of the reasons for this shortage and what solutions can you suggest?
Answer: It is no doubt true that in many cities the supply of houses is unable to
meet the demand for shelters. Although this is caused by several reasons, there
are still some feasible solutions to this issue.
 Positive/Negative question
This type of question is similar to agree/disagree question. We can say that
something is positive, negative or both positive and negative.
-

Example:

In some societies, fashion is becoming more and more important in choosing
clothes. Do you think it is a positive or negative development? Write at least
250 words.
Answer: It is true that a number of people place a great deal of importance on
fashion when deciding on which clothes to buy. While I believe that this is
positive in some ways, I think that there are also some negative effects of this
trend.
 Advantages/Disadvantages question
For this type of question, you are required to discuss the advantages and
disadvantages of something. Some questions also ask you to decide whether the
advantages outweigh the disadvantages. You can answer this type of question

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simply by firstly stating the topic, and then saying that there are advantages and
disadvantages and decide whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

-

Example:

Topic: A number of tertiary courses require students to undertake a period
of unpaid work at an institution or organization as part of their program.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of course
requirement? Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?
Answer: Some programs in universities often require students to work in an
organization without being paid. While this has a number of advantages, I
believe that these are outweighed by its disadvantages.

ii.

Writing A Conclusion

A conclusion is written by simply paraphrasing your answer which is the second
sentence in the introduction. The following are some examples of writing a
conclusion for the topics in part i:
1) Some people believe that money is the most important factor for
achieving happiness. However, others believe that happiness has nothing
to do with money. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

In conclusion, while I agree that people have to earn money to meet their basic
needs before they can live happily, I believe that other non-financial factors can
also contribute to their well-being.
2) Some people argue that teaching children of different abilities together
benefits all of them. Others believe that intelligent children should be

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