I am often asked ‘How should I answer questions about problems and solutions? Or questions where we need to say whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?”
If you have read my free book then you will know that there is no special way to answer any question ‘type’ – all of the IELTS writing task 2 questions are marked according to the same criteria. This means that you must always address all parts of the taskRespond to the question with relevant ideas that are extended and well supported, andPresent a clear position throughout.
We know this because the Task response criteria for bands 7 to 9 tell us this.
From the criteria for Coherence and cohesion, we also know that you must organise your ideas into logical paragraphs so that your argument progresses in a logical way.
So, if your question presents an issue and then asks you to discuss problems and solutions, then you will need to discuss any problems you can identify and suggest solutions to these.
The way that you organise your ideas will always depend on the issue and the ideas you have. You may decide to
✅introduce the topic and the issue
✅Discuss the main problems
✅Discuss the possible solutions to these problems
✅Reach a conclusion about the problems and solutions.
Or, if you are a more confident writer, you may decide that it is better to
✅Introduce the topic and the issue
✅Discuss a problem and a solution to that problem
✅Discuss a further problem and a possible solution
✅Reach a conclusion about the problems and the solutions.
❌There is no single correct way to answer.
Similarly, if you are given an issue and asked whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, you could organise your essay like this:
🔰Introduce the topic and the issue
🔰Discuss the advantages
🔰Discuss the disadvantages
🔰Reach a conclusion about whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
Alternatively, you might decide to write about the disadvantages first. All that matters is that you think about what you will writepresent your ideas in a way that is logical (and that)makes your position clear.
❓What do we mean by ‘the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?’
✅This simply means that we are prepared to accept the disadvantages because the advantages are so great. A good example is cheap air travel – this can be uncomfortable, but we are prepared to accept this for the greater advantage of traveling long distances quickly and relatively cheaply.
Notice that I can easily persuade you that the advantages are greater than the disadvantages – this is because it is a position I genuinely hold and it is based on my own experience. Problems can occur when people do not stop to think about their position and write simply to fill complete the task. Often, their argument is not logical and so their position and their conclusion is not clear.
For example, one essay sent to me by a follower of my page concluded that the advantages of sharing scientific research far outweighed the disadvantages. The main advantage he identified was that having access to information meant he could advise younger members of his family and help them to make career choices. He then explained that the main disadvantage: that a nuclear disaster had almost occurred near his home because of information being shared carelessly. I am sure you can imagine that his paragraph about the nuclear disaster showed that the disadvantages were in fact terrible, and his paragraph about the advantages was not very persuasive.
I suspect that this writer had not really thought about the issue and that he had simply written ‘I believe the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages’ in his introduction and conclusion because this was a template he had learned.
@ielts_essentials2020
