If you read enough IELTS books (or take the exam too often!), you’ll soon realise that there are very definite IELTS topics. There is a good reason for this: IELTS is a very international exam and the topics have to be suitable for all countries and all cultures. Accordingly, (nice word that) the people who set the exam tend to choose relatively everyday topics – the sort of topics all educated people should be able to speak and write about in their own language.
Academic IELTS topics
So one obvious way to prepare for the exam is to practise writing and speaking about these topics. They are:
- women and the family (5 topics)
- sport and pastimes (5 topics)
- employment and money (7 topics)
- the media and advertising (4 topics)
- travel and transport (4 topics)
- science and technology (10 topics)
- education (6 topics)
- government (5 topics)
- globalisation (7 topics)
- the environment and housing(4 topics)
- health (4 topics)
- language and culture (10 topics)
- law and order (4 topics)
Questions not just topics
While the topics are predictable enough, the actual questions are invariably extremely precise. Again, there is also a good reason for this: the examiners do not want you to learn an essay, they want to test your English and see if you can answer a precise question, rather than produce a general answer to a general topic.
Learn and practice the question formats
There are 3 main formats of IELTS essay question
Each type of essay has its own difficulty (see answering the question 2). I strongly suggest you practise each type of essay before the exam.
The exam format
Remember that in the exam these words are always included:
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience
This is no small point because it tells you that whatever the form of the question, you need to be able to explain and exemplify your answer ( see coherence).
if the task or question is “to what extent do you argree or disagree” should i still present both sides of the argument and on my conclusion i will sight my opinion? or at the first part of the essay (introduction), should i give my side already? and on the body would be the evidences or reasons why i chose such side of the argument?
Another good question. There is no definite right or wrong answer here. But let me give you a few guidelines.
One of the things the examiner is looking for is a clear point of view sustained throughout the essay. Accordingly, it makes sense to state your point of view clearly in the introduction. This way it makes it easy for the examiner to see what you are doing. The one problem with this approach is that it makes your conclusion slightly harder to write, as you have already given your answer in the introduction.
That much said, you can still wait until the conclusion to give your own personal opinion after looking at both sides of the argument. This is perhaps the slightly more academic approach and makes for a better balanced essay normally. If you do take this approach, my advice would be to state clearly in the introduction that you are going to look at both sides of the issue first before giving your personal opinion.
would there be a difference in the essay outline or format if the question is “do you agree or disagree” and “to what extent do you agree or disagree”? or same approach could be used? thanks so much! God bless you!
This is a good question and I apologise for not answering sooner. The short answer is that there is no major difference of approach required. If the question was “Do you agree or disagree?” Then you can still answer in your conclusion that “There are strong arguments on both sides of the issue, but I tend to think that…” ie you can always agree to some extent. Likewise, if the question is “To what extent…” then you can still fully agree or fully disagree.
What about a discussion? Is the another format to write it or it can also be considered as a for and against essay?
Thanks a lot.
Dear Dominique:
I have been experienced some issues about how to understand the “main” question whenever I come accross “to what extent do you agree or disagree?” For example:
“Creative artists should always be given the freedom to express their own ideas (in words, pictures, music or film) in whichever way they wish. There should be no government restrictions on what they do. To what extent do you agree or disagree?(Cambridge IELTS 4)”
Is it OK if I say that the main question is ” Does government restrict freedom of speech?”
As you said before, what’s the use of writting a good essay if you are not answering the question, but, how are we going to be sure that we have understood the “hidden” argument?
Thanks in advance!
A really good question. One possible problem is that the question comes in 2 parts. This is really quite common in IELTS. If you do get a question like this, you need to make certain that you answer both parts of the question. in your example.
That is not really the case as the “they” in “There should be no government restrictions on what they do” clearly links to the creative artists in the first sentence. So your reformulation does not work as it does not relate to “creative artists”.
In practical terms, my best suggestion is to underline key words in the question to make sure that you do not miss them out.
How do we respond an essay that asks for our opinion ?
Do we simply give our views all the way through?
No one answer to this. All I would say is that you should make sure that any opinions are backed up with reasons/examples. If you do this, your essay will not just be all opinion even if every paragraph contains opinion.
Hello Dominic,
Can I please ask you two questions?
Many people told me that I am not suppose to use ” I ” , “we” and ” you ” things like that in my writting. But I noticed you actually use them quite often. does that mean I could use these words in my writting?
Also, how to overcome umfamiliar topics? I feel one of the most frustrate thing is to think out ideas. I never can produce an essay in a limited time. I guess the problem for me is I do not have opinions at all. do you have any good suggestion about this?
Cheers
Lin
PS : I am going to have my IELTS exam this 29th, urgently need your advice!
))
There are no hard and fast rules here. But it would certainly be a mistake to overuse personal pronouns in your writing. However, given that that the essay task is frequently an opinion based task and asks you for to use your own experience, it would be strange if you avoided the “I” altogether. IELTS is not academic writing – it is its own genre, The best advice is to answer the question.
Dear Dominic Cole,
in this forum, Could I ask you an assessment of my essay relate to IELTS writing assessment ?
Thank you
Sincerely,
Yousman
Sorry, not for now. I may start a grading service soon but sadly my time is too short.
Hi What about if you are not familiar with asked essay topic.
Can you answer the question with general writing?
Thanks
You should do your best to answer the question as asked. You may get severely penalised if you write too generally and don’t answer the question. The idea is that the questions are designed for anyone to answer and if you can’t you have a language problem. That sounds a little harsh, no? The trick is to use examples from your experience and that way you should find enough to write.
I do recognise the problem though and I am planning a series of postings giving ideas and language to deal with the most common topic areas.
Thanks for the post, keep posting stuff
Hi Dominic,
I was taking IELTS classes from a tutor. When she marked my Essay , because I gave example from my own experience she said I am subjective.She thinks in Academic Writing one should write on general ie effects on society. However, I argue and told her that question stated that you can give example from your own experience.Do you think if I give my own experience the examiner will mark me down?
Kind regards,
Elle
Absolutely not. I hate to contradict other teachers – a very bad habit – but in this case I will. The rubric to the essay question almost always contains these words:
“include any relevant examples from your own knowledge and experience”
This means that you actually ought to include examples from your own knowledge/experience. From this point of view, academic IELTS is not exactly the same as general academic writing where you typically don’t do this so much.
The question remains though how you do it. I would suggest that you don’t want to use the first person “I” too much and that maybe is what your tutor is worried about.
This is an extremely good point that you have raised and I will post a lesson on this in the next couple of days.
It’s very true that it doesn’t matter if your writing is subjective or not. The way you express your ideas and construct your writing matter.
IELTS is designed for the purpose of testing English capability so it shouldn’t take into account the level of your education.
Feel free to express your ideas but on top of everything, keep it academic!
Thanks,
Sir, i have been teaching ielts for about four years with excellent results. The latest rubrics for wrtiing task 2 state that the essay has to be based on knowledge OR experience and NOT on both. Please maintain contact with me for further details.
Thank you for the correction on the exact wording. I do take issue with your interpretation of it though. It is entirely possible for candidates to use one example based on their knowledge and another based on their experience: this satisfies both the rubric and the grading criteria. Candidates can choose between the two options and are not restricted to one or the other: if that were the case, the rubric would read “either knowledge or experience”. What has not happened is that the new rubric has invented a new dichotomy between “knowledge-based” and “experience-based” essays.
Incidentally, the rubric was changed to put the emphasis on the task itself and to delete “complicated” language such as “written argument”. The idea is supposed to simple and the key to understanding the new rubric is that it explicitly asks candidates to be “relevant” in their examples and that these support the main points. Read this report by the chief IELTS examiner in Australia: http://www.englishaustralia.com.au/index.cgi?E=hcatfuncs&PT=sl&X=getdoc&Lev1=pub_c06_07&Lev2=c05_hogan
hello Dominic
i am from Iran (just wanted you to know that people from my country visit your website, too).
I’ve been searching the net for ages to find a website that can help me with my ielts essay questions and i now i can say yours is one of the bestests
i have some questions. will you help me with them please?
1. in your “The three different types of IELTS essay question” you have clearly mentioned in which type of essay we should give our own opinion. can you see this page please: http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-identify-the-type-of-essay-to-write-in-the-IELTS
i am confused a little. in which type should i reflect my opinion? and more importantly in which paragraph?
2. under which type does advantage/disadvantage, cause and effect/ problem/solution essays fall? discussion or argument? you seem to insist that all of them are argument type, but hubpages.com seems to differ.
3. what is explanatory essay?
Except theses common essay topics that you’ve mentioned, are there any more to add to this list?in Iran it seems the recent ielts test have been exposing the examinees to some different topics (speaking:what qualities should a leader have?does your political one have?, etc)
thanks an ocean for spending time for us
hlo dominic i do not get the ideas while writing an essay,what would you like to suggest to do thats why my essay is always too short and to make it bigger i repeat some lines in diffent way.
Typically, I advise my students to think of examples and reasons. It is very easy to get stuck when you are looking for ideas. Ask yourself the questions “Why is that true?”or “how can I explain that?”
if a question says ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’,then what should i write in th body paragraphs. whether i have to stick to agree only through out the whole essay or also have to write something about why i diasgree please answer me correctly
hello mister Cole.
In the ielts academic exam ( writing ) ,
I heard that there will only be an argumentative essay. is that true ? and if not what else ?
Ah. It depends what you mean by argumentative. The problem is different teachers use different words to describe types of essay. I am guilty of this too. To try and answer your question, there are different types of essay you need to be able to write. These include:
discussing both sides of an issue
commenting on a proposal to solve a problem
looking at two different options and deciding which is better
giving solutions to a problem
I could go on. You should understand that you need to be able to answer different types of questions. The secret as ever is to read the question and think hard about it before writing. Think about what it is asking you to do. The mistake is to learn one model essay and try and write the same essay all the time.
- Show quoted text -
Very helpful post for IELTS Students.
(I am writing here since I could not find an email to write to)
Dear Dominic
first of all I want to compliment you for your website. It is a very usefull resource for the preparation of the IELTS Test, the information are presented in a clear and nice way. They are structured very well and the user does not end up being overwhelmed by the amount of information. This is a very important point -at least to me-, because reading your site had the result of calming me me and improve my self confidence for the exam. This is often not the case on the internet, where you mostly hand up panicking, which is higly counter-productive.
Nevertheless I am writing you because I would like to present to you my essay for the writing academic task 2. I would really like to have a feedback from you, because unfortunately I can’t find no one to correct me one and I would like to have an opinion before I take the exam (which is in 7 days: unfortunately I have found your website late
). I am not asking you to correct every mistake, just to read it once and give me your impression and maybe the main points that I have to be careful about in the test (the first being word number: by rewriting to the computer I have just seen a lot of mistakes that I could have corrected if I had the time, thing which I haven’t). If it possible can you say to me around band score I am? Or, is this essay enough good for a minimum band score of 5.5?
I am really looking forward to read an answer from you and I thank you in advance for your courtesy.
Kind regards
Nicolò
Writing task 2
Write about the following topic:
In many countries schools have severe problems with student behaviour.
What do you think ar the causes of this?
What solutions can you suggest?
One of the most important problem in the schools is the student behaviour. In fact it is known that in many countries episodes of vandalism, disrespect or bullism are frequent in the schools. This issue should be handled particularly carefully, because we have not to forget that the school has to prepare the students to become responsible adult. It is therefore very important to individuate the causes and the possible solutions to be applied, in order for the school to fullfill its educational role in the best way.
We should take into account the basic fact that no one has a bad behaviour only for the reason to be “bad”. Often those behaviours are the expressions of other, hidden problems. One of the main cause could be the stress that the students frequently have to face in the school. Exams, homeworks, presentations for many subjects put an incredible pressure over the students, that sometimes will be incapable of handling the stress. Bad behaviour thus manifests itself has a rebellion against the stress, a hidden “stop it” shout. Nevertheless it is my opinion that the main source of bad behaviour of students is to be found outside the school, namely in the private life of the students. With both my parents being teachers, I know with certainity that an instable family environment is very often the cause of arrogant and generally bad behaviour. Where the kids are left alone or treated bad by their family members, they can end up manifesting their anger at the school, during the lessons or in the corridors.
Those problems suggest their solutions. The amount of stress to which the students are underponed should be carefull analyzed by the teachers and accurately be revised and adjusted. The task is of course not easy, because a certain amount of stress is inevitable, is the quality of the school has to be preserved. Regarding family problems, it is my firm convinction that child that were raised (or still are) in instable family environment should be followed carefully by expers, such as psyhcologists and pedagogists, and sustained by teachers, in order to allow them to retrieve their happiness and bring their life back on the tracks.
Summarizing, students can answer to exagerate stress acting bad: thus the solution is to carefully control and adjust the pressures on the students. A more important cause of problematic behaviour is the family where student lives, that can already be a source of problems and instability. Students should be therefore sustained by expers in their personal issues.
(you can answer me via email if you want)
Sorry for the delay. Had a quick look and it looks an extremely good essay. My one concern is length. sometimes shorter can be better. Sorry but I simply don’y have the time to look at individual essays.
Hi,
This is a very good job. It was clearly given how to approach a task since you already have given the clue how to practice a certain topic, and so, through this, many IELTS writing examinees will have the idea now on how to write and speak appropriately. TheIELTSSolution.com
Thank you.
hi,
it is my first acknowlegment of this wonderful site. Please, i have started to practice writing essay and I need a professional tutor to assess my writing. I would like to know if I can send my essays to be assessed.
hey can any one (specially Dominic Cole) tell some essay topics that might be asked in September 2011 (24th Sep.). please reply fast i need some important topics .
Sorry, I have no way of telling – there’s a pretty large stock of questions. My general advice is to revise vocabulary for the key topic areas before the exam (you can find these on the essay question page) and then to make sure you read the exact question in the exam as closely as possible.
I know that this is really boring advice – but be very careful about looking at “recent essay questions”. For me, their only real value is to tell you the types of topic you will need to write about and what sort of vocab you need. Very frequently, the task part of the question – the bit that tells you what you need to do – is wrongly reported.
Dear Dominic,
Thank you very much for your helpful hints and appreciable and dedicated efforts.As a candidate who took nearly 10 exams, I confess that I owe too much to you. This is a very simple way to say thank you.
Regards,
Tina
Pleasure. I hope it’s worked out for you now. 10 tests is a lot – painful.
Hi Dominic, very good exam website thankyou.
Please, how much is band reduce for short answer?
Thankyou!!!
Happy world rabies day!
It rather depends how short the answer is. My understanding/recollection is that you cannot get above 5.0 for task response unless you use 250 words
Hi,
Your blog seems really good since you give sample IELTS essay questions and topics that would somehow helpful to those IELTS writing examinees. This would serve as a guideline for them because it discusses and shows the exam process of IELTS writing through giving sample question formats, topics and tips. Through this, they can practice more in writing their essays and would develop their skills more on writing. TheIELTSSolution.com
Thank you.
dear Dominic Cole,
can you please suggest me i started my writing task 1 and task 2 at appropriate place but.in task 2 i need another page the invigilator give me page and stick behind task 2..but unfortunately i continue my task 2 on the first page (task 1)..if they will penalised me..p;ease answer me because i m in dilemma i write both task very well. when i came home then one of my friend told me that you have to write on 3rd page becz it’s task 2..no one give announcement for that..will it affect my score?? please answer as soon as possible..
I’m afraid I don’t have the answer to that one. I suspect that it wouldn’t make any difference. The examiner is likely to have worked out what you did.
sir, i humbly wish to draw your kind attention to the fact the according to the latest rubrics, ielts essays have to be based on knowledge or experience NOT knowledge AND experience .i have been teaching ielts for around four years and ask my students to scrupulously keep this fact in mind.Please answer.
Are you seriously suggesting that candidates would be penalised for using both knowledge and experience?! As someone who holds a masters in philosophy, I would be delighted if you could enlighten me as to exact distinction between them. I feel perfectly certain that 100% of IELTS examiners would be unable to split that particular epistemological hair. I believe you will find that “or” enables candidates to do both. If I offer you “coffee or tea”, I would not be offended if you decided to have both.
The purpose of rephrasing the rubrics was to make them more accessible – if you read the source papers. The purpose was not to introduce a new challenge to candidates.
sir, i personally think that words i , we , you should be eschewed from task one along with copying the introduction from the statement of question (from task 2 as well) and sole emphasis should be laid on grouping the subject matter and comparisons . This is what i ask my students to do .
Eschewed! a long time since I saw that word used in earnest. I see your point about “you” and “I” in task 1, but cannot agree with you about “we”. I agree with you about copying wording from the question. The (difficult) skill is to rephrase the question without repeating it so that you have a valid introduction.
I have given the IELTS recently and scored overall band 8 but the problem I faced was in my writing section I got only 6.5 and I need a score of & minimum to get into the university I desire for.
CAN YOU PLEASE HELP ME..
Your blog is very helpful. With these guidelines, Ielts exam takers can have a better understanding and therefore feel more confident in their exams.
Thanks,
hi…. piya here
pls can anybody suggest me reading techniques ?? specially for headings n yes/no/not given i cnt get more thn 6
You will find my own suggestions on the reading page. The key is to understand the difference between No and Not Given.
help me
write for and against argumentative essay Taking exams : for and against
I’ll see what I can do for you. It’s the sort of topic you need to be able to write and speak about. I’ll try and post something next week.
Thanks but I need it for Monday.
good job, Dominic
which kind of English should i register for, general or academic? my intention is to apply for a job as a nurse. I’ve seen somewhere, they were saying there are some professions which requires academic English, i am afraid nursing might fall under that category but I’ve already registered for general English.
If you are headed for the UK, it will be academic IELTS you need. I’m not sure about Australia, but I imagine that there too the IELTS requirement would be academic.
When did you apply? Normally, you can get a refund of your fee if you cancel 5 weeks before. Contact your local test centre. It may be that they might also take pity on you and allow you to transfer to academic
Dear Dominic,
I have a very big problem with preparing for IELTS( Academic).
I took IELTS for 3 times and my overal band score was 6.0 in all of them.
My first time I scored 6.0 in every module.
The second and the third I had 5.5 in Listening, 6 in Reading and Writing and 6.5 in Speaking.
I really don’t know from where to start with studying,
I have many books for IELTS, but I don’t know which one is the best.
Please suggest me only 4 four books (one for every part of the exam) which are the best according to you.
I desperately need 7.0 in every part of the test.
HELP, PLEASE!
Appreciation for this infmortiaon is over 9000-thank you!
Can i use pencil to attempt IELTS writing test?please anyone must reply me.
Hi Dominic,
I want to find out whether it is appropriate to write less that three words where it is stated that one should use no more than three words.
Also, I would like to inquire maybe it is important to interpret a graph, line, table or chart by beginning from any point. Front, Middle or Back.
I shall be looking forward to receiving your reply.
Thanking you in advance.
No more than 3 words means 1, 2 or 3 words.