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How to organise my Task 2 Essay for a Band 8 or 9?

by Mesh
(England )

Hello,

I have two questions.

1) Introduction.

Importance of a background sentence in an introduction?

Should we directly jump into paraphrasing the topic or is one background sentence good? I'm talking about for band 8/9 essays not for low bands.

2) Organisation of agree / disagree questions.

Suppose a question asks about "to what extent do you agree or disagree".

Some people argue that we should write:

1. Intro
2. Why I agree or advantages
3. Why I agree or advantages
4. Conclusion

Second method is discussing both point of view even if I agree. But mentioning both the points of view.

1. Intro
2. Disadvantages (opposite to my views)
3. Why I agree and advantages
4. Why I agree and advantages
5. Conclusion


Please! Let me know. As I need to score 7.5 or above in writing.

Comments for How to organise my Task 2 Essay for a Band 8 or 9?

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Aug 15, 2016
 Band 7 essay organisation
by: IELTS buddy

Hi Mesh,

Firstly, discussing answers to those two things you mentioned will not necessarily reflect whether you get above a 7 or not.

You are marked on a lot of different factors. For example you could write a great introduction but if your body paragraphs are not so good, your score will come down anyway.

1) Introduction

There is no fixed rule about what should be in an introduction for getting a band 8/9, though you should always have one or two sentences introducing the topic before going into the thesis as this is the standard way to write an introduction and most examiners are likely to expect it and it makes it coherent.

If you have very good writing skills you could write an introduction that is a bit longer which is fine, but you should not do that if you are a bit weaker and may need more time to think about your grammar etc.

Agree / disagree questions

Again there is no fixed way of answering this that equates to a band 8/9.

You do want to show how skillful you are however so I would recommend the second approach that you suggested where you look at both sides.

You could do it as you said or have one body paragraph discussing either side.

There is an example of the approach you suggested here: Information Technology Essay

Good luck
Jul 30, 2017
 essay 2
by: Thau

I was taught by tutor that in agree and disagree question, he told to write both view why I agree and why others disagree but the point is that I agree with the above statement. That was my confusion. Looking forward to ur reply.. Thank u
Aug 01, 2017
 essay 2
by: IELTS buddy

Hi Thau,

I'm not sure what your question is?
Aug 30, 2017
 about Coherence and cohesion
by: Anonymous

My essays lack both coherence and cohesion. Please guide. Also, tell me how many ideas should I write in one body paragraph to justify my views. Looking forward to getting your reply
Thank you very much
Sep 01, 2017
 about Coherence and cohesion
by: IELTS buddy

It's not possible to tell you how to make your essay coherent and cohesive here - you are marked on many different things in this criteria so it would take pages to explain.

That is why this site is here so please take a look through the website - there are lessons and other tips and strategies on how to improve the way that you organise and present an essay.

Here are lessons that deal with the IELTS Essay:

IELTS Essay Lessons

As with ideas in a paragraph - there is not one simple answer to that. Each body paragraph must have one central idea or topic, but you could support that with a number of points.

Again this is about coherence and cohesion which is covered on the site, which I recommend looking through.

Good luck
Nov 20, 2019
 Task 2 Plan
by: FX

I agree that there is no proper rule to get band 8 or 9 in both the introduction and body paragraphs. Some crucial things that need to be paid attention in the introduction are the general statement of the topic followed by a topic statement and finally your thesis statements. The thesis statement is likely a roadmap to guide the readers to quickly understand your ideas for a meant topic. You will then write your thesis-based paragraphs, each paragraph is better to have one main idea only. In the last paragraphs is the conclusion paragraph that you can also paraphrase your thesis plus some more outstanding ideas of each paragraph.

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