Five different IELTS essay types and sample essays
Written by John McGrath – IELTSTrainersAustralia:
About John McGrath:
• IELTS expert at FACE Education VN & IELTS Trainers Australia
• Learning Adviser – English at James Cook University
• Works at British Council Vietnam
• Works at IDP Education VietNam
• Former Head of Mini-School at Noble Park Technical College
• Former Campus Principal at Warragul Regional College
• Former Deputy Principal at Kurnai College
• Former Head of the I.T. Department at O’Loughlin Catholic College
Five different IELTS essay types
1. Discussion essay
Some people say that advertising encourages us to buy things that we really do not need. Others say that advertisements tell us about new products that may improve our lives.
Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Completing university education is thought by some to be the best way to get a good job.
On the other hand, other people think that getting experience and developing soft skills is
more important.
Discuss both sides and give your opinion.
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or
experience.
2. Advantage/disadvantage essay
The development of tourism contributed to English becoming the most prominent language in the world. Some people think this will lead to English becoming the only language to be spoken globally.
What are the advantages and disadvantages to having one language in the world?
3. Cause and solutions essay
Many offenders commit more crimes after serving the first punishment. Why is this
happening, and what measures can be taken to tackle this problem?
4. Opinion essay
Many people believe that social networking sites (such as Facebook) have had a huge
negative impact on both individuals and society.
To what extent do you agree?
5. Specific question/direct answer essay
Art is considered an important part of a society as well as an expression of its culture. Do
you think it is important for children to be taught art? Do you think children should be
encouraged to focus on art rather than other subjects?
Sample essays
1. Discussion essay
“Some people think that a sense of competition in children should be encouraged. Others believe that children who are taught to co-operate rather than compete become more useful adults”.
Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Considerable discussion occurs about the best way to bring up children. While some would argue that children should be exposed to the harsh realities of competition in the real world, others believe that team work and group learning result in better-developed adults. In my opinion, children do not need to be exposed to the ‘real world’ until much later in life and should be encouraged to learn in a way that supports the learning of the whole group.
Those who hold the view that children should be exposed to competition early in life often do so for reasons gained through their own experience of the world. They view adulthood as existing in a hostile, ‘dog-eat-dog’ environment. They argue that children need to be toughened up to survive the rigors of this difficult life. They see that providing competition from the earliest stages of life, in all facets of home and school, assists children to withstand this harsh environment. But others propose a conflicting view.
This alternate view proposes that children are not equipped to deal with competition through early and sustained exposure. Rather, they suggest that children need to develop a full range of skills and confidence in their own ability before entering the adult world. They argue that children naturally co-operate and readily join with each other in developing solutions to problems. Finally, they suggest that the skills learnt through shared learning and co-operation are the very ones needed to survive in the competitive world. Essentially, this is my view of the debate.
I hold that children are best developed through co-operative learning practices and that the adult world is not necessarily a ‘cut throat’ one. First, children are often observed in creating fantasy situations and then jointly finding solutions to problems. Children often work together to create new games where the rules are constantly re-worked. In education, the development of co-operative learning strategies mirrored what was seen as the natural process followed by children. However, this view is not shared by everybody, particularly by the Far Right of the educational debate.
By way of conclusion, the world is divided about whether to expose children to rigorous competition at an early age or to allow them to develop in naturally co-operative ways. Conservatives tend to see the world as a highly competitive place in which only the highly competitive will succeed, while others argue that a less ideological and more child-based solution is a better way. I don’t believe that the world is so highly competitive that young people need to be exposed to it at an early age.
2. Advantage/disadvantage essay
“In order to solve traffic problems, governments should tax private car owners heavily and use the money to improve public transportation.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of such a solution?”
The ever-increasing problems experienced by 21st Century cities in dealing with overwhelming traffic numbers are inviting some radical responses, most of which involve lessening the impact of cars and increasing the role of public transport. The advantages of such solutions revolve around the desire of people for clean air, ease of movement and the availability of well-maintained and safe public transport. For the individual, however, there is a loss of personal comfort and convenience, while the nation will face a restructuring of certain industries and a loss of revenue in some areas.
The proposal to increase taxes and improve public transport has a number of obvious strengths. Most clearly, the resultant decrease in air pollution as exhaust emissions are reduced is a given. With the subsequent drop in traffic congestion, people will be able to move more easily and quickly around their cities and pedestrians may reclaim some space. Another attraction is the well-run, fast and comfortable transportation systems that often evolve, noticeably in countries like Japan and in parts of Europe. However, the public gains may be offset in other ways.
While the general public appears to gain significantly from this idea, private individuals and some business sectors may experience a downside. The car represents the ability to move around comfortably regardless of weather and external conditions, which cannot be said of getting to and from public transport. The automotive and related industries will come under pressure to maintain profits in this new urban environment. As well, governments will need to alter their revenue-raising arrangements to cater for this change. As cities grow, they will need to balance these conflicting demands.
By way of conclusion, it is the nature of the rapid growth of our cities that is leading to the need to devise new solutions to worsening traffic problems. Increasing taxes on cars and improving public transport will help reduce pollution reduce commuters’ travel times and provide a much improved mass-transportation system. On the other hand, restrictions on the rights of the individual, the effects on particular industries and government tax bases will all be significantly impacted. (349 words)
3. Cause and solutions essay
“In some countries, young people have little leisure time and are under a lot of pressure to work hard on their studies.”
What do you think are the causes of this?
What solutions can you suggest?
Particularly students in Asian countries are required to spend vast amounts of time either attending classes or in preparing for them. The causes can be attributed to the Education system, the expectations of parents and to the attitudes of students themselves. Solutions range from decreasing the number of subjects in the curriculum, focusing less on exams and more on group learning, to having parents and students develop a greater awareness of the need to spend time away from studying.
The Education System is often seen as a major contributor to the problem. The emphasis on schools achieving ever better exam results restricts creativity and initiative, as well as preventing change. Too often school administrators and teachers are judged by their students’ performance in exams, rather than on such less-easily assessed measures as student satisfaction, happiness or even their ability to ultimately find paid employment. If the System were to adopt different values in defining success, then schools might behave very differently.
Parents play a significant role in this problem. As families move to try to escape from the modern rural poverty, parents often place great emphasis and make a considerable financial sacrifice on educating their children in the hope that they will take them out of the poverty trap. In many parts of Asia parents still overly-influence their children in their choice of university course and in potential careers. This has resulted in considerable ‘over-supply’ in those courses perceived as leading to good incomes, particularly in banking and financial services. Parents do need to be much more aware of the interests and talents of their children in planning study paths.
Too often students themselves contribute to the problem by being overly-competitive and unduly scared of being seen as a failure. This self-induced pressure is perhaps the most difficult to change as students are unwilling to disappoint their families and are often convinced that failure to reach the top academically means a life of poverty and worthlessness. If students could be shown that there are many other ways to judge the worth of people, such as creativity, leadership, inspiration, honesty and integrity, then the over-emphasis on success in examinations might diminish.
To conclude, many people in Asia particularly are concerned that the lives of their children are being consumed by the perceived need for constant work and study. Educational administrators, parents and students all contribute to the problem, though few see ways to change it. Possible solutions involve changing the system itself to a less exam-centred curriculum, convincing parents that the work force is over-crowded with unemployed graduates, and helping students to take the pressure off themselves by identifying other criteria of success. With these measures, the lives of children might change dramatically over time.
4. Opinion essay
Schools should prepare pupils for their future lives and for the world of employment. Learning about history is not necessary and more emphasis should be placed on other school subjects.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Teaching history in schools has long been a thankless task, though some have managed it better than others. As a consequence, many are opposed to the teaching of history, arguing that it is not relevant to a modern curriculum, while others believe that it is an essential tool in learning to avoid the mistakes of the past. It is my view that History, well-taught, is essential to our survival.
That there is long pent-up hostility to learning History should not be under-estimated. Its lack of clear relevance to the present is cited as one of its problems. The concentration on facts and dates is another. Its vulnerability to political interference means that often educators fail to support it, even though they understand the need for it. However, this seems to me to be a short-sighted view, as if ignoring the mistakes of history will not necessarily condemn us to repeating them.
To my mind, History is an essential ingredient in most learning and its place in the curriculum should be enhanced, while considerable effort is needed to upgrade its teaching to make it more relevant and engaging. If society fails to do so, the lessons of thousands of years of constant warfare will be lost and warfare will continue to be the normal state for humanity. The lessons of ever-increasing destruction of the environment will be similarly unknown, resulting in unpredictable repercussions of possibly cataclysmic proportions. The effect of reducing the learning of History would have a wider impact as well.
The downgrading of History would ensure the loss of some of our most significant social assets. The wide variety of culture in the world would be merged into a few shared ones, spurred on by the commonality of television and other media. Our ability to predict and avoid economic disasters, such as that of the Great Depression in 1929, would be lessened. We would lose the ability to identify and understand trends in society and therefore prevent us from shaping our own destiny. The need is clear, but the implementation has often been the problem.
The teaching of History in our schools has few advocates these days. Its relevance has been questioned as a matter of course, while others see it as central to our development. In my opinion, we would lose History as a core in the modern curriculum at our peril.
5. Specific question/direct answer essay
“The inequality between rich and poor nations is now wider than it has ever been before. What do you think are the main causes of this difference and what do you think can be done to reduce the gap”.
Give reasons for your answers.
The gulf between developed and developing nations is often a source of considerable angst to the poorer countries and often ignored by the complacent rich. The causes range from the extraction of wealth during the period of colonialisation, the luck of having extensive natural resources and assistance from rich countries following periods of great turmoil. Some measures have been shown over time to be effective and these may include an increasing globalization of industries but with appropriate tax and labour laws, increasing aid in the areas of training and development and refraining from fighting wars on foreign soil.
It seems to me that perhaps the most significant cause of this gap is the nearly six hundred years when the great colonial powers, notably Britain, Holland and Spain, were able to exploit the wealth and resources of subject nations. Nearly as importantly, countries that are naturally rich in resources are able to turn these into wealth-producing exports. For some countries, assistance from great powers following periods of turmoil has been the vital factor, particularly in the cases of Japan and Germany post World War Two. While the major causes are indeed historical, the steps that can alleviate the problem are much more modern.
There have been encouraging signs that some recent developments seem to be helping to alleviate poverty. The much-maligned globalization of industry has caused an upsurge of wealth in China and may soon be doing so in surrounding countries, providing proper labour and taxation laws are implemented. Increasing the already significant provision of education helps ensure a clever and well trained, as well as cheaper, workforce. If countries could resist the urge to fight their wars on foreign soil, places such as Afghanistan and Iraq might avoid further destabilization. It is possible to be optimistic about some of these trends.
In conclusion, while the gap between wealthy and less wealthy countries has been broadened, perhaps the rate of separation is slowing. Colonialism may be on the wane, local ownership of resources is becoming less important and assistance from other countries has spread to a much wider group of nations. It is possible to see hope in the equalizing effects of globalization, the ease with which training assistance can be provided and in the often-frustrated hope that global warfare might diminish.
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