10 IELTS Task 2 Model Essays
Ten essays, all five question types, and - more useful than the essays themselves - the reasoning behind every paragraph.
Unofficial original RCF practice material
Every question and every essay on these pages was written by RCF English. Nothing is copied or adapted from Cambridge IELTS books, from any coursebook, or from any other website.
This material is not produced, approved or endorsed by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia or Cambridge University Press & Assessment, who jointly own IELTS.
These essays are written to be studied, not memorised. Examiners are trained to recognise a memorised essay, and a rehearsed passage that does not fit the question is treated as evidence that the candidate cannot answer the question.
The ten essays
| # | Topic | Question type | Open |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Technology replacing teachers | Opinion: to what extent do you agree? | Read |
| 2 | Free university education | Discussion: both views and your opinion | Read |
| 3 | Working from home | Advantages and disadvantages: do the advantages outweigh? | Read |
| 4 | Traffic congestion in cities | Problem and solution | Read |
| 5 | Children and screen time | Two-part question | Read |
| 6 | Spending on space exploration | Opinion: agree or disagree | Read |
| 7 | Museums: visitors or local people? | Discussion: both views and your opinion | Read |
| 8 | Plastic waste | Causes and solutions | Read |
| 9 | Ageing populations | Advantages and disadvantages | Read |
| 10 | Traditional skills disappearing | Two-part question | Read |
The single most common reason candidates stay at Band 6
It is almost never vocabulary, and it is almost never grammar. It is not answering the exact question asked.
Discuss both views and give your own opinion requires an opinion. To what extent do you agree? requires a position, not a survey. Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? requires a verdict on which is greater, not a list of each. A two-part question requires both parts to be answered at similar length.
Before writing a single word, underline the instruction and write down in your own words what you are being asked to produce. Candidates who do this move up half a band on Task Response with no improvement in their English at all.
The five question types and what each one demands
| Type | How it is worded | What the essay must contain |
|---|---|---|
| Opinion | To what extent do you agree or disagree? / Do you agree or disagree? | A clear position held from introduction to conclusion. You may agree partly, but say so explicitly - 'partly' is a position, 'it depends' is not. |
| Discussion | Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. | Genuine treatment of both views at similar length, plus a stated opinion. Two instructions, both marked. |
| Advantages and disadvantages | Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? | A verdict. If the wording is only discuss the advantages and disadvantages, a balanced account is enough - read the wording carefully, because the two are marked differently. |
| Problem and solution | What problems does this cause and what could be done? / What are the causes and what solutions can you suggest? | Roughly equal weight to both halves. Solutions must connect to the problems you named, not float free. |
| Two-part question | Two direct questions, often unrelated in grammar. | Both questions answered, at similar length. Answering one well and the other in a sentence caps Task Response. |
The five minutes before you write
Forty minutes is the budget. Spending five of them planning is not a luxury; it is what prevents the paragraph that goes nowhere.
Identify the type and the instruction
Underline the instruction words. Write down what you must produce - both views + my opinion, or a verdict on which is greater.
Decide your position first
Not after the second paragraph. If you do not know your position before you start, the essay will contradict itself, and Coherence suffers as much as Task Response.
Write two body-paragraph topics only
Two developed paragraphs beat three thin ones every time. Examiners reward extension - a point explained, illustrated and taken one step further.
Check that your two points are genuinely different
It saves money and it is cheaper is one point written twice. This is the commonest structural fault in Band 6 essays.
Leave three minutes at the end
Not to add ideas - to check articles, plurals, verb endings and spelling. Grammatical accuracy is 25% of the mark and this is the cheapest way to protect it.
Habits that help and habits that cost marks
Do this
- State your position in the introduction and again in the conclusion, in different words.
- Give the opposing view its strongest form before you answer it.
- Develop two ideas fully rather than listing four.
- Use examples from reasoning, general knowledge or your own experience - all three are explicitly allowed.
- Vary sentence length deliberately. A short sentence after two long ones reads as control.
Avoid this
- Invent statistics. Studies show that 78% of people... earns nothing and often looks implausible.
- Open with Nowadays, in this modern world, technology is developing rapidly. Examiners see it hundreds of times a week and it contains no content.
- Memorise phrases like it is a double-edged sword and insert them regardless of fit. Misused idiom lowers the Lexical Resource mark.
- Write over 320 words. Longer essays contain more errors and accuracy is a quarter of the mark.
- Use bullet points, headings or note form. They are heavily penalised.
Alongside these essays
Full practice test
All four papers, with answers and model answers.
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