HOW TO STRUCTURE AN AGREE OR DISAGREE ESSAY : IELTS WRITING TASK 2

Here’s how to structure an agree or disagree essay : IELTS Writing Task 2

This essay is about how to structure an agree or disagree essay IELTS Writing Task 2

A lot of my IELTS students struggle with how many ideas they need and how to structure their essay.

HOW TO STRUCTURE AN AGREE OR DISAGREE ESSAY IELTS WRITING TASK 2

This article with explain clearly what you need to do and why. If you want to read some examples of different essays you can click here.

Clear position

The first thing to remember is for the question above you don’t need to discuss both sides but you can if you want.

Therefore you have a choice about whether to discuss the ‘agree’ side, the ‘disagree’ side or discuss both sides. We’ll examine these options later.

Even if you choose to discuss both sides you must clearly state whether your opinion is agree or disagree. This is very important for your Task Achievement score.

You can see from the table below that if you don’t clearly choose a side, you will not score above a 5 for Task achievement – no matter how good the rest of your writing is.

So to summarise, for the question above you must have a clear position and you have three possible options:

1. Strongly agree. You think it’s better for governments to spend money on rail rather than roads. You discuss only this side.

2. Strongly disagree. You think it’s better for governments to spend money on roads rather than rail. You discuss only this side.

3. Discuss both sides. You discuss both sides but you have a clear opinion about rail or road.

HOW TO STRUCTURE AN AGREE OR DISAGREE ESSAY : IELTS WRITING TASK 2

Clear essay structure

As you can see from the table above a clear position throughout your essay is very important for your Task Achievement.

So I always recommend to my IELTS students that they give their opinion in the introduction as well as the conclusion (for all Task 2 questions).

Technically, it’s OK to write a very general introduction and leave your opinion to the end.

But I strongly suggest that you don’t do this because it’s not as clear.

Also, you might run out of time before you’ve got to your conclusion, so overall it’s a risky strategy.  

Therefore my suggested IELTS Task 2 essay structure is four paragraphs – an introduction, two main (or body) paragraphs and a conclusion.

The opinion is presented in the introduction and re-stated in the conclusion, and each body paragraph should only discuss one main idea.

Now let’s look at the options in more detail.

Structure

Many students fail to do well in this type of question because they do not have a clear opinion and they do not use an appropriate structure.

The best structure you can use for this type of essay is:

Paragraph 1- Introduction

Sentence 1- Paraphrase Question

Sentence 2- Thesis Statement

Sentence 3- Outline Statement

Paragraph 2- Supporting Paragraph 1

Sentence 1- Topic Sentence

Sentence 2/3- Explain Topic Sentence

Sentence 3/4- Example

Paragraph 3- Supporting Paragraph 2

Sentence 1- Topic Sentence

Sentence 2/3- Explain Topic Sentence

Sentence 3/4- Example

Paragraph 4- Conclusion

Sentence 1- Summary and reiteration of your opinion.

That’s it! Four paragraphs.

Note: You don’t have to use this structure and other structures can get you a high score. However, this structure has been approved by IELTS examiners as one that will allow you to write a clear and cohesive essay. This structure will allow you to focus on generating your ideas and then writing an effective essay.

Deciding Opinion

In this essay, IELTS examiners want you to give a clear opinion, so it’s really important for you to make a decision when you read the question. You will also need to do this in order to write an effective thesis statement.

In an agree or disagree essay

we have two choices:

1. We agree with the statement or;
2. We disagree with the statement

Some teachers advise you to partly agree and disagree. However, I would NOT recommend this because it often leads to an essay with NO clear focus and a CONFUSING structure.

Let’s look at an example:

Team activities can teach more skills for life than those activities which are played alone. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Introduction

In order to paraphrase the question we simply restate it with a different meaning using synonyms. 

I will also reorder the question. Here is the question again:

Team activities can teach more skills for life than those activities which are played alone.

Paraphrased: Group activities can also be source of learning skills for life than other activities those are played in singles.

This is our first sentence.

It is an irrefutable fact that division of work under several groups increase the efficiency of the activities.

We now need to write our thesis statement. This is our opinion in one sentence. This essay will agree with the above statement and will, therefore, look like this:

This essay endorse the statement upto large extent with arguments described in the following paragraphs.

This is our second sentence.

We now need to write our third and final sentence, which is the outline sentence. This sentence outlines what you will write about in the main body paragraphs.

Grouping of work states more skills such as increase in the compatibility of individuals as well as rise in the social standards of masses, whereas separate working of activities leads to personal growth.

So our full introduction will look like this:

It is an irrefutable fact that division of work under several groups increase the efficiency of the activities. Group activities can also be source of learning skills for life than other activities those are played in singles. Grouping of work states more skills such as increase in the compatibility of individuals as well as rise in the social standards of masses, whereas separate working of activities leads to personal growth. This essay endorse the statement up to large extent with arguments described in the following paragraphs.

Supporting Paragraph 1

A topic sentence tells the examiner what the rest of the paragraph is about. It should look something like this:

Needless to say, there are plethora of positives of working in team.

We now need to expand on this point a little. A good way of doing this is to assume that the examiner has no knowledge of this subject and you have to explain clearly what you mean. Here is what this could look like:

The most prominent one is that it is quite worthful in making the work more successful. To elaborate, it is evident that working in groups come forward with enormous number of ideas of individual. Furthermore, these will certainly increase the productivity of the project.

We should now think of an example to support our point. Think about any recent news stories, studies or adverts. If you can’t think of one, make one up. The examiner won’t check if it is real or not.

To cite an example, from a survey conducted by Times of India, it can be seen that there is 70% of chances of winning will be more if project is done among groups. In addition to it, it also motivates the employees. While doing work in teams, individuals develop the feeling of motivation among themselves. It can not be denied that self motivation is leading factor in achieving success.

That’s it. Four sentences. The full paragraph should look like this:

Needless to say, there are plethora of positives of working in team. The most prominent one is that it is quite worthful in making the work more successful. To elaborate, it is evident that working in groups come forward with enormous number of ideas of individual. Furthermore, these will certainly increase the productivity of the project. To cite an example, from a survey conducted by Times of India, it can be seen that there is 70% of chances of winning will be more if project is done among groups. In addition to it, it also motivates the employees. While doing work in teams, individuals develop the feeling of motivation among themselves. It can not be denied that self motivation is leading factor in achieving success.

Supporting Paragraph 2

We now repeat the same formula with our second supporting point- higher taxes will increase prices and reduce consumption.

Our topic sentence:

However, inspite of above mentioned merits of working in team; there are several advantages of doing anything alone too.

Explaining this further:

The most obvious argument is that it reduces the wastage of time. To illustrate, it can be said that if any individual is performing the activity alone in that case, they are able to focus more on their work whereas, in teams sometimes, they linger on their work because of some disturbances they are not able to give their best to the project. In this way, it can be said that working alone is quite effective. To add upon it, person has their own authorisation as there is nobody to disturb them and he is the king of his own project as he has to take all decisions alone.

The full paragraph would look like this:

However, inspite of above mentioned merits of working in team; there are several advantages of doing anything alone too. The most obvious argument is that it reduces the wastage of time. To illustrate, it can be said that if any individual is performing the activity alone in that case, they are able to focus more on their work whereas, in teams sometimes, they linger on their work because of some disturbances they are not able to give their best to the project. In this way, it can be said that working alone is quite effective. To add upon it, person has their own authorisation as there is nobody to disturb them and he is the king of his own project as he has to take all decisions alone.

Conclusion

Another concern is how to write a effective conclusion.

As stated before a good conclusion for agree or disagree essays should include:

Sentence 1- Summary of main points

Sentence 2- Your opinion

Don’t write any new ideas in this paragraph.

A good conclusion should just restate your thesis statement and your main supporting points.

To recapitulate, on the basis of above deep analysis it cannot be ignored that working alone is quite easy whereas doing work with team, has to face several difficulties which can lead to destruction of project and organization also.

Agree or Disagree IELTS Sample Essay 

It is an irrefutable fact that division of work under several groups increase the efficiency of the activities. Group activities can also be source of learning skills for life than other activities those are played in singles. Grouping of work states more skills such as increase in the compatibility of individuals as well as rise in the social standards of masses, whereas separate working of activities leads to personal growth. This essay endorse the statement up to large extent with arguments described in the following paragraphs.

Needless to say, there are plethora of positives of working in team. The most prominent one is that it is quite worthful in making the work more successful. To elaborate, it is evident that working in groups come forward with enormous number of ideas of individual. Furthermore, these will certainly increase the productivity of the project. To cite an example, from a survey conducted by Times of India, it can be seen that there is 70% of chances of winning will be more if project is done among groups. In addition to it, it also motivates the employees. While doing work in teams, individuals develop the feeling of motivation among themselves. It can not be denied that self motivation is leading factor in achieving success.

However, inspite of above mentioned merits of working in team; there are several advantages of doing anything alone too. The most obvious argument is that it reduces the wastage of time. To illustrate, it can be said that if any individual is performing the activity alone in that case, they are able to focus more on their work whereas, in teams sometimes, they linger on their work because of some disturbances they are not able to give their best to the project. In this way, it can be said that working alone is quite effective. To add upon it, person has their own authorisation as there is nobody to disturb them and he is the king of his own project as he has to take all decisions alone.

To recapitulate, on the basis of above deep analysis it cannot be ignored that working alone is quite easy whereas doing work with team, has to face several difficulties which can lead to destruction of project and organization also.

I hope you find it useful.

Thanks….Have a Great Day Ahead.