The essay is the second task in the Writing section, regardless of whether you take IELTS Academic or General. It usually takes about 40 minutes to write. Remember that you will need to write at least 250 words.
Questions to be answered in the essay (keyword – answer (!)) are very diverse: from questions about education, health care, gender roles to youth, environmental protection, i.e. almost everything you can write about and discuss. What does it mean? It’s quite simple. There is no magic sentence that can be inserted into any essay, and most likely, on the day of the exam you will not “get” a question that can be used to answer it. Even if this is the case, using a few simple steps will allow you to write the piece and get a good score.
Most of those who take the exam think that the most important thing in writing an essay is to kill the examiner outright with fanciful words, so-called ‘posh words’, and incomprehensible phrases. If you think so too, we will disappoint you: this is the worst way to write an essay.
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STEP 1. ANALYSE THE QUESTION
It is important to understand what the task is. You will need to express your opinion or offer some solutions, describe the advantages and disadvantages of something, agree with some opinion or disagree with it, etc. In any case, read carefully what is required from you.
Most often, there are four types of questions and, therefore, essays:
- Giving your opinion
- Agree/disagree
- Suggesting a solution
- Pros and cons
Unless you read the question carefully, you will not be able to define its type or define it incorrectly. It is also not necessary to write in a general context. Each task has tooltips: keywords, micro-keywords, and instruction words. Keywords indicate a general topic, micro-keywords specify the subject of the essay, and instruction words define its type.
Example:
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.
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. You should write at least 250 words.
Words in blue indicate the general topic – young people finishing high school and starting university studies – no need to write about it (!). If you write about it, you will not answer the question.
Words highlighted in green are the subject of our essay – work or travel: young people who decide to do this. But that is not enough, we need to look at the instruction words highlighted in red: discuss the advantages and disadvantages.
Here you need to be clear about what are the advantages or disadvantages. If the benefits outweigh, write the reasons why, also write why the disadvantages are not significant. If you describe only the advantages, you will not fully answer the question.
STEP 2. PLAN YOUR ANSWER
Writing an essay without a plan is like using a cool gadget without instruction. When it breaks, it will be too late. In the case of writing an essay, even if you write a good introduction, then you simply run the risk of getting lost and will end up missing the time to finish it, or start generalizing, or the text of the essay will be incoherent or lack logical consistency, and etc., which cannot but affect your score.
Imagine that your plan is a map you will use to move around the area (the text of your essay). That is why every sentence is a step that brings you closer to your destination and it has a purpose. All sentences in your essay should be thought out and related.
Planning should include:
- Generating ideas
- Structuring ideas
- Selecting Vocabulary
Some teachers and tutorials on IELTS preparation suggest that you handle the first assignment with brainstorming. Another effective way is to answer the question directly.
In the case of our essay, for example: Why are the advantages of working and travelling before starting university studies are stronger? Why are the disadvantages weak?
The advantages of working and travelling before starting university studies are stronger because it gives more opportunities to decide about the place of getting further education, to try working in different fields and to take the final decision about your future career.
The disadvantages are that you waste time while others obtain education, but this is a weak argument, because you get valuable experience demanded by most of the employers.
So we get two ideas that we will develop in our essay.
Next, we organize our ideas into a structure. This will help us further make the text of the essay coherent.
As we already know, there are several types of essays, and each will have its own structure. In general, it should look like this:
Another common problem faced by those writing the essay is the repetition of the same words, especially the words in the question, over and over again. This lowers the vocabulary rating because it indicates ignorance of synonyms.
The solution to this problem may be to identify words in a question that can be used more than once. Example:
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.
Write synonyms that can substitute these words:
young people – youth, grownups, adolescents
work – earn money, be busy with something, perform
finish school – leave school, accomplish secondary education
university studies – higher education, obtaining a degree
disadvantages – drawbacks, pitfalls, minus
advantages – benefits, pluses
The more you learn to plan during the preparation for the exam, the better and faster you will write and this will cause every sentence in your essay to have a purpose, which is exactly what the examiner wants.
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STEP 3. WRITE YOUR ESSAY
Before you begin writing the essay, remind yourself that IELTS does not check how good you are at the subject area. There is no right or wrong answer to the essay question. All tasks include open-ended questions, i.e. you need to discuss it and express your opinion.
To pass IELTS successfully, you will need good handwriting skills (if you are uncomfortable to write with a pencil, choose the computer version). Consider this when preparing for the exam, i.e. practice handwriting or typing on the keyboard (just do not use auto-correction of text, as spelling matters when evaluating your essay).
Keep in mind the minimum number of words – at least 250, the more – the better (in average 260-280). Counting words on the exam day is a waste of precious time. Therefore, we recommend preparing for the essay, using the official answer sheets. This will help you quickly estimate the number of words. During your preparation, you can count the average number of words you get per page. On the day of the exam, you will not have to spend time on it.
IELTS is about using an academic / formal writing style. Avoid using slang. Write in complete sentences, pay attention to punctuation. In the academic essay, it is necessary to:
- structure ideas into separate paragraphs (we made an essay plan for this, see above). If there are no paragraphs in the essay, you lose points.
- write complete sentences, they should have a subject and a verb. If you are writing complex sentences, remember to use the conjunctions (and, but, so, when, because, although, etc.)
- avoid repetition of words and ideas. For this purpose, there are synonyms as well as so-called linking words to make your text appear coherent and cohesive.
- avoid using slang. Leave English from movies and social networking to connect with your friends. The essay should not contain words such as ‘so’ or ‘actually’, ‘I guess …’, ‘What’s more …’, etc.
- Use a neutral tone, you don’t have to sound aggressive, agitated, or overconfident about the idea. example:
Informal: During the interview I asked students about their experiences.
Formal: During the interview students were asked about their experiences.
Informal: It was raining cats and dogs.
Formal: It was raining very heavily.
As you can see, it will take time to prepare for writing an essay. Even so, learning how to analyze a task and plan your answer will save you time during the exam and make you feel confident. You should practice regularly and try your best, gradually creating conditions that are similar to real testing conditions, limiting yourself strictly to 40 minutes and writing your answers with a pencil or using the keyboard.
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