...IELTS GENERAL WRITING TASK 2 continued

After a little bit of a break...

 

The first thing to do is to understand what the topic is before you start writing. You must answer all parts of the question. What do we mean by “all parts of the question”?  Some writing tasks ask you to maybe give opinions or discuss views or advantages and disadvantages. You need to look at the question/task carefully and answer all parts of the question.

 

You need to be able to make your position clear, provide main ideas, followed by supporting ideas as well as examples. Do NOT forget to write an introduction and a conclusion.

 

What if I don’t know how to start the writing?

 

As I mentioned above you must understand the question first, analyse the question. You should spend no more than TWO minutes on this.

 

Brainstorm as many ideas as you can, it does not matter at this stage if the ideas are not related/silly etc. at this stage all ideas are good ideas. You should spend about 2-3 minutes. Brainstorming helps to bring all your ideas together, so during the writing task you will not be erasing all the time.

 

Plan your answer. Which idea are you going to use in which paragraph, how can you support your ideas. The examiner will be looking at how your essay is planned.  (The examiner will not be looking at your plan, but will be able to see from your writing how you planned your essay). Spend around TWO minutes planning your essay.

 

Now, begin writing your essay. Make sure you follow your plan as you write as this will save you time and energy as you have all your ideas written down. As you are writing, make sure you use reference words (e.g. these, those, this, there etc.).  Approximately 28 minutes to write your essay.

 

After you have written each paragraph, count the number of words you have written in each paragraph and make a note for yourself.  As you need to write 250 words, if your word count is less.  then you will lose points and you may only get a maximum band score of 5 in Task Achievement.

 

Once you have finished writing make sure you check your writing. Check for spelling mistakes, word formation, grammar etc. Trust me, when you check your writing you will find mistakes in your writing and this could possibly gain at least a half band score. Save around 5 minutes to check your writing.

 

Good luck with your essay writing!