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
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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

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