Opinion and argument essays
opinion essay
You need to be familiar with and practise both types of essay for the exam so that you can answer any question.
The argument essay:
- you already have the two ideas you need to write your essay: "I agree" and "I disagree" - all you need to do is find some reasons for and against together with examples to illustrate.
- the second content paragraph can mirror the language of the first paragraph and so make the writing process more efficient
- the conclusion is easy to write: you give your personal opinion and comment on the arguments on both sides - it is the answer to the essay task
- you may need more ideas and it is easy to start repeating ideas and language in your content paragraphs
- there is also a danger of repeating yourself in the conclusion if you use it to summarise your arguments
IELTS writing - Task 1 report- describing numbers
Part of the skill in task 1 writing is dealing with numbers. With a pie chart, line graph or table you need be able to summarise the key details: to do this you need the language of numbers, as you should not simply write out all the numbers - it is a summarising task. This can be surprisingly complex to do as the figures in most task 1 exercises are not “simple figures” but rather more complex
How to describe differences accurately
40 is double is 20, but what about 42 and 20? Or 30 and 88?
These are the sort of “complex figures” you may need to describe in the exam and the examiner is looking for an accurate description of just this type of numbers. What you need to do is compare the numbers. Here is some helpful language for you: it is important that you have some variations here
Basic meaning | Variation | Variation | Variation | Variation |
about | approximately | around | more or less | |
more than | over | just over | ||
less than | under | just under | almost | nearly |
exactly | precisely |
So 40 is exactly double 20
42 is approximately double 20
30 is just over a third of 88
More language of numbers
To do this well, you need some mathematical language too:
simple language | simple figures | complex language | complex figures |
double | 40:80 | approximately double the amount | 40:82 |
twice | 40:80 | twice as many people | 40:80 |
three times | 30:90 | over three times as many people | 30:100 |
four times | 50:200 | nearly four times as many people | 50:190 |
half | 60:30 | about half the amount of televisions | 60:28 |
a third | 120:40 | precisely a third of the televisions | 120:40 |
a quarter | 160:40 | almost a quarter of all televisions | 160:35 |
a fifth | 150:30 | just over one fifth of all televisions | 150:33 |
a fraction | 100:8 | a small fraction of students | 1000:25 |
percentage | % | a significant percentage of students | 65% |
proportion | similar to % | a large proportion of students | 80% |
.
A test
How well can you work with number language? Try this brief quiz to find out.
IELTS vocabulary - a brief introduction
IELTS writing - paragraph coherence
"You should use your own ideas, knowledge and experience and support your arguments with examples and relevant evidence."
Some examples
Read through these three paragraphs taken from different IELTS essays and note how they all have a similar structure.
Point
Explanation
Example
This is a pattern you can follow in most essays to give coherence to your writing by expanding on one point. I will add that this just a model guideline, it isn't a rule. There will be times when you do not use examples for instance.
There are those who argue that the internet has had an extremely positive influence on communication. They say this because in the past it was sometimes impossible to call people in other countries on the telephone, but now it is relatively simple to use a program such as Skype to talk to them for free or to send an email. A good example here are the students who go to study abroad and are able to send messages home with no difficulty, when in past they would have had to buy stamps and go to the post office which was much harder and more expensive.
A strong argument can of course be made from the opposite position. Part of this argument is that countries and nations need to preserve old buildings in order to preserve their heritage. In addition, however, to this cultural argument, there are positive economic benefits in preserving old buildings. An illustration here is Egypt once again, a country which depends on tourism for much of its national income simply because visitors pay to come from other countries to visit its ancient sites.
There are several reasons why it can be argued that television has a negative effect on cultural development. Perhaps the principle argument is the lowbrow nature of many programmes, particularly sitcoms and soap operas. People who watch these programmes do not learn anything, they are simply entertained. The other major argument is that because people watch so much television, they no longer take part in more traditional forms of cultural entertainment. An example here is how traditional dancing and music is becoming much less popular because people are staying at home to watch the television.
IELTS writing - cohesion - a brief introduction
How does it work?
conjunctions: these are the words like and and but
pronouns: pronouns (it, they, this and that etc) are generally linking words as they link back to nouns
vocabulary: another way to link is to use the same or similar word again.
How to do it?
There are many people who claim that global warming is the most significant threat facing us today. They argue this because it is a danger not just to the current generation, but also to the generations to come. Indeed, it is this threat to our future that is of most concern. For instance, some research shows that one effect of global warming might be there will not be enough food to feed the world in the near future. If that did happen...If we look at how this links together, we see:
many people | they (pronoun) |
that global warming is ... | this (pronoun) |
claim | argue (synonym) |
not just | but also (a matching pair) |
current generation | generations to come (repetition) |
a danger | this threat (pronoun + synonym) |
Indeed (linking phrase for further explanation) | |
generations to come | future |
global warming | global warming (repetition of technical phrase) |
there will be not enough food | that (pronoun) |
A common mistake
Exercise
Cohesion exercise - Get more Business Documents
Now check your answers.
Cohesion - answer sheet - Get more Business Documents
Cohesion Vocabulary
Read through the sample language in the text below to see how you can make your writing more cohesive.
cohesion in IELTS essays - Get more Business Documents