1.

Question Analysis
This is probably the most important stage. The number one
problem most IELTS students have is not answering the question
properly. Did you know you cant get above a band score 5.0 if
you dont address all parts of the question?

Lets look at an example question:

One of the consequences of improved medical care is that the people are
living longer and life expectancy is increasing.

Do you think the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

The keywords here are improved medical care. This is our

general topic. A common mistake is to highlight the main
keywords, or main topic, and write about this very generally. If
you do this you have not answered the question.

We need to think about things more specifically and look for what
I call micro-keywords. They are living longer and life
expectancy is increasing. We therefore need to write about
these and how improved medical care has increased life
expectancy. But we cant just write a general essay about this, we
must look at the instruction words next.

The instruction words are Do you think the advantages of

this outweigh the disadvantages?

If you just discuss the advantages you will not answer the
question correctly. We will also need to make our opinion about
his very clear.

So in summary we must:

Find keywords (general topic)

Find micro-keywords (specific topic)

Find instruction words (how to answer question)

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2. Planning
Ask why questions. Like:
Why are the advantages of increased life expectancy strong?

Why are disadvantages of increased life expectancy weak?

We can then simply think of one or two relevant ideas for each of
these questions.

The advantages of increased life expectancy are strong because

most people think it is good if their friends and family dont die
too quickly and everyone is happier.

The disadvantages are that there is more demand for food and
resources but this is a weak argument because technology can
solve these problems.

We now have two very relevant ideas and we can now move on to
our next stage

Structure

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Body paragraph
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Body Paragraph
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Body Paragraph
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Conclusion:----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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3. Introduction
1. Paraphrase:

Paraphrasing is simply re-writing a phrase or sentence so that it

has the same meaning, but with different words.

Method Number 1: Using Synonyms

Synonyms are different words that have the same meaning. For
example, humans is a synonym of people and attractive is a
synonym of beautiful. This method simply replaces words with
the same meaning in order to produce a new sentence.

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For example:

My car needs petrol.

My vehicle requires fuel.

Method Number 2: Change the Word Order

Changing the word order also allows us to effectively paraphrase

a sentence, but again, we have to be careful. Dont change the
word order without thinking about how this affects the grammar
of the sentence. By changing the word order you may have to add
a word, subtract a word or change the form of the word.

Question: Learning to manage money is one of the key

aspects to adult life.

Paraphrased using a relative clause: Learning to manage

money is one of the aspects to adult life that is key.

Method Number 3: Change the Form of the Word

There are many different forms of words including nouns, verbs,

adjectives and adverbs. Changing the form of a word allows us to
paraphrase effectively. Again, dont just change the form of the
word; you also need to check that your changes make
grammatical sense. You might need to change the words around it
to make the sentence error free.

Question: Longer life spans and improvements in the health

of older people suggest that people over the age of sixty-
five can continue to live full and active lives.

Paraphrased by changing word form: Longer life spans and

improvements in the health of older people are suggesting
that people over the age of sixty-five can continue living
full and active lives.

Method Number 4: Change from Active to Passive

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The passive voice is often used in academic writing and can
therefore be used in the IELTS academic writing test. Only verbs
with an object can be turned into the passive.

Example active sentence: The property developers invested

$20 million in the development of the shopping centre.

Example passive sentence: $20 million was invested in the

development of shopping centres.

2- Writing a thesis statement:

A thesis statement is your main idea and I often describe it to

students as how you feel about the whole issue in one sentence.
It tells the examiner that you have understood the question and
will lead to a clearer; more coherent essay.

Opinion Question

Some aspects of celebrity culture have a bad influence on

young people.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this

statement?

We have three choices with this kind of question:

1. I agree

2. I disagree

3. I both agree and disagree

I tell my students to only choose options one or two. Choosing

option three will often lead to a confused and/or very long essay.
If you have just one opinion and you stick to this, it will lead to a
clear and well argued essay.

You therefore have two choices.

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 1. I agree that some aspects of celebrity culture have a bad
influence on young people.

2. I disagree that some aspects of celebrity culture have a bad

influence on young people.

All of your thesis statements for a similar question should start

with:

This essay agrees that..

or

This essay disagrees that..

We should try to avoid using personal pronouns like I and we

therefore use This essay. instead.

Also remember that we should not copy the question as this is not
allowed in the IELTS writing test and instead we should
paraphrase.

For example, This essay agrees that the some famous peoples
lifestyles have a detrimental effect on the youth of today.

Second Example Opinion Question

Increasing the price of petrol is the best way to solve

growing traffic and pollution problems.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Thesis Statement: This essay disagrees that the best way to

resolve increasing pollution and congestion problems is to raise
the cost of fuel.

Common Problems
1. Talking too generally about the topic.

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Most of these essays start off with Nowadays or In modern
life. followed by general information about the topic. In my
opinion, this is the worst start you can possibly make. Remember
that you are supposed to answer the question not write generally
about the topic.

2. Not including a thesis statement

This is the most important sentence in the essay. Not including

one will lose you marks in several different ways. I will tell you
more about this below.

3. Not outlining what you are going to do

If you dont include a sentence outlining what your essay will say,
the examiner doesnt really know what you are going to write
about in the rest of your essay. This will also lose you marks. Ill
show you how to write an outline sentence below.

4. Trying to write a hook or be entertaining

Remember this is an IELTS exam, not a university essay. There are

no extra points for being interesting, in fact being boring will
probably help you. This will help you avoid flowery language.

5. Using an informal style

Know your audience. You are expected to write in an academic

style.

4. Main Body Paragraphs

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Question : Most high-level positions in companies are
filled by men even though the workforce in many
developed countries is more than 50 percent female.
Companies should be required to allocate a certain
percentage of these positions to women. Do you agree?

For:

Fairness

Equality

Prevent discrimination

Women outperform men in many jobs

Women outperform men in many schools and university

subjects

Against:

Should be based on merit not gender

A few jobs, like construction, are better suited to males

I support the for category so I am going to pick two of those

reasons and write topic sentences for them. You should always
pick the ideas you know most about, or in other words, can
explain and support with examples.

Topic Sentence 1: Women should be allocated a certain

percentage of roles because to not do so, discriminates against
them because of their gender.

Topic Sentence 2: Females should be given a bigger share of

jobs because women currently outperform males in most
university subjects.

As you can see, all I have done is simply introduce my ideas in a

very clear way. There is no need to use very advanced to do this,
stating your position in simple language is all you need to do.

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Task: Try taking some of the other ideas above and writing a topic
sentence.

Explaining Our Ideas

Explaining ideas is a problem for most students, not because they

cant do it, but because they dont see the point in doing it. They
think that the examiner must be an educated person and
explaining simple ideas to them is wasting their time.

You should never assume this and instead I tell my students to

assume that the reader has no knowledge of this subject at all
and you need to explain what you mean in order for them to
understand.

There are certain phrases we can use to explain our ideas such
as:

That is to say. (linking)

In other words (linking)

This is because (giving reasons)

The reason is. (giving reasons)

As a result. (describing result)

As a consequence. (describing result)

Therefore. (describing result)

Use one of these phrases to explain what your topic sentence

means, the reason why, or the result of your topic sentence. You
dont need to do all three, just one. Make sure that anyone with
no knowledge of the subject can understand what your main point
is.

Example 1 Women should be allocated a certain percentage of

roles, because to not do so discriminates against them because of
their gender. As a result, women will be denied jobs, not because
of their intellect or skill, but simply because of their sex.
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Example 2 Females should be given a bigger share of jobs,
because women currently outperform males in most university
subjects. That is to say those young women are just as qualified
as men, if not more, and should therefore be given at least an
equal share in the job market.

The last point I will make about explanations is they should relate
specifically to the question. They should not generally explain
what the idea is; they should explain how the idea answers the
question.

Make sure you read the question again before you write a topic
sentence or explanation.

Supporting Examples

The last part of a good supporting paragraph is a relevant

example. Examples give your points more authority and make
your argument stronger.

The two main problems here are not being able to think of
examples and examples not being specific enough.

In the IELTS test, if you cant think of a good example, make one
up. In school or university you should research and use real
examples, but in the test it is fine to make them up. It is not a test
of your knowledge; it is a test of your written English. The
examiners will never check the examples and they are only
worried about how the examples support your ideas.

Two good ways to make up examples are using newspaper articles

or university research. I often do this when I am writing sample
answers and they also help you be more specific (see below).

The examiner wants your examples to be as specific as possible.

To illustrate this we will look at three examples.

Women should be allocated a certain percentage of roles,

because to not do so discriminates against them because
of their gender. As a result, women will be denied jobs,

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not because of their intellect or skill, but simply because
of their sex.

Example 1- For example, lots of women fail to get jobs solely on

the basis of their gender.

Example 2 For example, many business women in Asia find it

difficult to get jobs as CEOs, despite having the same
qualifications as men.

Example 3 For example, in 2014 it was reported in The Straits

Times that only 9 of Singapores top 100 companies have female
CEOs, despite making up 50% of the total workforce.

The first example is very general and is not a satisfactory

example.

5. Conclusion
Here you provide a summary of what you have already said in the
rest of the essay.

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