IELTS Academic Task that is writing 2 the second of two writing tasks on the IELTS. Despite the fact that Task 1 is by no means easy, most students find IELTS Task that is writing 2 challenging. The objective of this guide would be to allow you to master the IELTS Writing Task 2 skills you want to do well about this important portion of the IELTS exam. In addition to the basics of IELTS Writing Task 2, we’ll cover how to organize your essay, the question types you’ll see on test day, and share our favorite practice resources.
Click on a section when you look at the table of contents to skip straight to that topic, or keep reading below to start out learning all about IELTS Writing Task 2. If you’re interested in IELTS Writing Task 1 tips, click on this link!
IELTS Academic Writing Task 2 involves composing a formal essay that is five-paragraph 40 minutes. The first section—Task 1—should take you simply 20 minutes. Why spend more time on IELTS Writing Task 2? This basic comparison offers a few reasons:
Let’s look at some basic IELTS essay writing tips for IELTS Writing Task 2:
The IELTS is a paper and pencil exam, which means that your responses are going to be handwritten. It is essential that you handwrite (don’t type!) your practice essays for Task 2. Writing by hand makes it possible to develop a feeling of pacing. Simply put, you are going to quickly learn how (or slowly!) you write with pencil and paper in English.
Importantly, as you’re probably aware, precious points will be deducted if you fail to meet up with the minimum word requirements into the Writing section. However it is a huge waste of the time to actually count your words on exam day. If you take the additional step of using official IELTS Writing Task 2 response sheets (download and print them here), you can observe just how many words you typically write on each page. You won’t need to count because you should understand what that true number of words seems like on the IELTS answer sheet.
Writing speed varies a complete lot from student to student. How you allocate time depends a whole lot on how fast you can write. The more you practice Task 2 responses, the quicker you will become. Your ultimate goal ought to be to allow time that is enough these three things:
While you practice, try quite difficult to cut down on the amount of time it requires to plan your responses before writing. Some students usually takes as much as ten full minutes to brainstorm and plan. For many people, however, using ten minutes at the beginning will take away an excessive amount of time from writing and editing. I usually recommend three to five minutes of planning as a target that is reasonable. The greater amount of practice questions you answer, the faster you shall become at generating ideas before you write.
The IELTS expects you to definitely use an academic/formal writing style. What this means is you should use the same variety of language that you would when writing a written report for work or an essay for school. Obviously, you would avoid“slang that is using words. You would also write in complete sentences and make use of punctuation that is proper. Check out additional popular features of academic/formal writing to keep in mind for Task 2:
Write in complete sentences: make certain each sentence you write has an independent clause with a subject and verb. Whenever you write complex or compound sentences, use “connectors” like coordinating conjunctions (and, but, so, etc) or subordinating conjunctions (when, although, because, etc).
Avoid repetition of words and ideas: Your ideas should move from one to a higher logically, and you ought to show your vocabulary off by avoiding redundancy (don’t repeat the same words over and over repeatedly).
Avoid “slang:” The English you hear in the movies or continue reading social media is usually inappropriate for formal writing. It is a problem that is big use words like “dude” or spellings like “U” (for “you”) on the IELTS.
NOT ACADEMIC: this idea is hated by me! (Too excited/angry)
ACADEMIC: this concept has some problems to consider.
NOT ACADEMIC: Everyone is distracted by cell phones these days.(Too broad)
ACADEMIC: Many people are distracted by cell phones these days.
NOT ACADEMIC: I have the best solution towards the problem. (Too certain)
ACADEMIC: I would suggest this treatment for the issue.
In this section, we will consider the overall structure of an IELTS Writing Task 2 response. Before we get to that, however, let’s have a look at a sample Task 2 question. Read it over and take a moment to consider: How would you respond?
You will take fairly quickly when you first encounter an IELTS Writing Task 2 question, try to decide what perspective. Unfortunately, the IELTS doesn’t offer you much time to repeat this. Making matters worse, it really is fairly likely that you won’t have strong, well-developed opinions about the topic. Don’t worry. Task 2 questions are (intentionally) debatable, with no answer that is clearly“correct.
Fortunately, unlike an essay you might write for work or school, it’s not important to present your opinions that are true the IELTS. Remember, the IELTS is an English language test. It isn’t a test of everything you know about the topic of your Task 2 question. When you should present reasonable ideas in a clear and logical way, it is possible to argue any side of the question and do well. Therefore, as opposed to worrying all about (and hanging out on) formulating your true opinion in your Task 2 topic, ask yourself the following question instead:
“what’s the simplest way for me personally to answer this question?”
Can you think about some main ideas and/or examples quickly for starters side of an argument? No matter if these ideas don’t fully represent your perspective, go with them just regarding the IELTS. You don’t want to waste too much effort thinking about how to express your true opinions.
When you’ve chosen a perspective on your own question, can be done some planning/brainstorming. Below are some planning notes for our sample Task 2 question (introduced above). On exam day, you won’t have a chart like this to fill out. The chart simply helps you to result in the information much easier to read in this article. Basically, your aim within the planning phase is always to come up with a idea that is main each paragraph of the essay. We shall discuss every one of these paragraphs in more detail underneath the chart.