What is included in this article?

By reading this article, you will improve your writing skills to effectively:

• understand the question (the topic and the task)
• choose a relevant and effective content
• organize your content effectively
• brainstorm and generate ideas
• support main ideas
• develop supporting ideas
• write an effective introductory paragraph
• write effective body paragraphs
• write an effective concluding paragraph
• edit your essay

Introduction

Achieving a band score of 7 on the IELTS Writing Task 2 seems to be one of the most significant challenges for IELTS candidates. 

Whether taking the Academic or General module, the key to your successful immigration or academic journey can sometimes be a 7 on the IELTS Writing test. 

Not only do you need much practice to get a 7, but also you should learn the most effective practicing strategies.

In this article, you will learn a 5-step practicing strategy by writing an essay in response to a writing Task 2 question selected from Cambridge IELTS 16, test 4.

If you learn this strategy and follow all the steps when practicing writing, you will significantly improve your essay writing skills and the chance to improve your writing score. 

Read each step carefully. Note the details of all 5 steps and follow the same strategy when practicing for IELTS Writing Task 2. 

Regardless of the question type, you can follow these steps to plan and write an effective essay in response to IELTS Writing task 2 questions.

Let’s begin and talk about each step in more detail:

Step 1- Read and understand the question and think about appropriate content for your essay.

IELTS Writing Task 2 questions will always have two parts: 

– An introduction to a topic

– A task that specifically asks you what you need to do regarding the topic

So, in step 1, you should:

– understand the topic

– understand the task

– and think about appropriate content for your essay

To help you better understand what this means, let’s read this sample question from Cambridge IELTS 16, Academic, test 4:

In the future, all cars, buses, and trucks will be driverless. The only people traveling inside these vehicles will be passengers. 

Do you think the advantages of driverless vehicles outweigh the disadvantages? 

Let’s try to understand the question: the topic and the task. 

What is the main topic of this question? Can you write down the main topic in a few words?

Let’s highlight some of the topic keywords:

In the future, all cars, buses, and trucks will be driverless. The only people traveling inside these vehicles will be passengers. 

So, the topic is written in the form of a statement, telling us:

That in the future, no vehicle will need a driver. All vehicles, including cars, buses, and trucks, will be driverless. Only passengers will drive in them.

So, it is logical to say that the main topic presented within the first part of this task 2 question is:

All vehicles will be driverless in the future. 

This is a statement. At this point, we do not care if this is going to be the case in the future or if this will happen or not, how it will happen, or when it will happen. We just assume that: future cars will be driverless.

Now, it is time to focus on the second part of the question: the task.

Do you think the advantages of driverless vehicles outweigh the disadvantages? 

First, note that the task asks for your opinion, so you should clearly state your opinion in your response. But your opinion about what? Your opinion about:

If the advantages of vehicles becoming driverless outweigh the disadvantages. 

In your opinion, are there more advantages than disadvantages to all cars becoming driverless? Or do you think the opposite is true? That there are more disadvantages to this situation. 

So, you should write an essay to express your opinion about:

• some advantages and disadvantages of driverless cars
• whether there are more advantages than disadvantages, or if you think the opposite is true

What do you really think? More advantages or more disadvantages?

The last part of step 1 is to answer this question. To choose appropriate content for your essay, you need to have a clear position on the topic. 

Let’s assume that you believe that there are more advantages to cars becoming driverless. You think that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. This is your opinion about the topic. Your clear response to the task. 

That is the end of Step 1. You now clearly know:

• the question’s main topic and, 
• what the task is asking you to include in your writing
• Your opinion about the topic. 

So, you exactly know the content of your essay. Now, it is time to move on to Step 2. 

Step 2- Come up with an effective essay plan.

An essay plan will help you organize your content.

How many paragraphs do you need? And what will be the focus of each paragraph?

In the previous step, you found the content of your writing. Now, it is time to organize it. 

Always, your essay will begin with an introductory paragraph, so the first paragraph will be the introduction. 

The last paragraph will always be the concluding paragraph, the conclusion. 

In between, you will always write 2 or 3 paragraphs. These are called your body paragraphs. No less than 2 because it would be impossible to address all parts of the task. No more than 3 because you have a strict 40-minute time limit.

Now, any ideas for the main topic of each body paragraph?

Here is one suggestion:

Let’s review the content we chose in step 1:

You are going to write an essay to express your opinion about:

• some advantages and disadvantages of driverless cars
• whether there are more advantages than disadvantages, or if you think the opposite is true

In step 1, we assumed you believe there are more advantages to cars becoming driverless; you think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Choosing a clear position on the topic is critical because it will help you decide the main content of your body paragraphs. 

Remember that your position on the topic should be clear to the reader throughout the entire essay to get a 7+ score on the IELTS Writing Task 2. The reader should easily understand your position on the topic, and whatever you write in each part of the essay should be consistent with your position. 

For this example, you can start your first body paragraph by acknowledging that there are some disadvantages. 

Then, moving on to the second paragraph, you can start talking about the advantages of driverless cars in detail.

Depending on how many ideas you have and how you decide to develop them, you might also want to include a 3rd body paragraph in your essay.

Because we have decided to mention that there are more advantages, it is actually a good idea to include this 3rd body paragraph in your essay. This way, you will have the chance to talk about more advantages or talk about advantages in more detail. 

So, the essay plan will look like this:

An essay plan is a simple guide to help you organize the content of your writing logically. 

For this example, you now know the main idea of each of your body paragraphs:

Paragraph 1: acknowledge that there are some disadvantages.

Paragraph 2: mention the main advantages, support your ideas, and develop your ideas further. 

Paragraph 3: Continue talking about the positive effects of this change. 

This is a very logical organization of your content. 

Clearly, if you write an essay with this structure, the reader will understand that you, as a writer, believe that there are more advantages to having driverless cars. 

By now:

• you have chosen the content of your writing.
• you have decided how to organize your content. 

And you are ready for the next step.

Step 3- Brainstorm and generate ideas for each body paragraph. 

This is a critical pre-writing step. 

Brainstorming will help you generate ideas and, eventually, a mind map which will be your best guide once you start writing your essay. 

Each of your body paragraphs should have one main idea. That main idea should be supported by supporting ideas. Each supporting idea should be further developed with developing ideas.

This is one of the best structures for writing a body paragraph in IELTS Writing task 2. 

When brainstorming, try to differentiate between main, supporting, and developing ideas.

We chose the main idea of each body paragraph in step 2. Now, it is time to generate more ideas for writing each body paragraph. The ideas we generate will:

• either support the main idea
• or develop the supporting ideas further

Let’s begin the brainstorming for body paragraph 1:

The main idea is:

– to acknowledge that there are some disadvantages to driverless cars. 

ask yourself these questions:

• How can you support the idea that driverless cars have some negative impacts?
• For your answers to the above question, how will you talk about each item more? In other words, how will you develop each supporting idea further?

Let’s begin to answer those questions:

Here are some of the drawbacks of all cars becoming driverless that we can include in our first body paragraph:

We can talk about:

• many people will not be able to afford these cars. 

Explain more:

• Very expensive because of the advanced technologies used.
• Fewer people will have personal vehicles.

What about some other disadvantages? 

The ideas mentioned above can be enough for writing a paragraph about disadvantages. Still, when practicing brainstorming, it is always helpful to write down as many ideas immediately coming to your mind.

You might not use all of them, and most probably you won’t, but this way, you will have the option to choose and focus on the ideas you can better explain or develop. 

Here is another disadvantage:

We can talk about:

• An increase in the unemployment rate. 

Explain more:

• All drivers (Taxi, trucks, personal drivers) will lose their jobs.
• No need for a driver’s license: driving instructors and examiners will lose their jobs.

Do any more disadvantages come to your mind? What about the following:

We can talk about:

• Impossible to have the required security infrastructure for such a change.

Explain more:

• IT infrastructures get attacked by hackers; even the most secure ones (like Google).
• Can have catastrophic results societies have never seen before.

On a real test, only one or two ideas would have been enough because we will write down only one paragraph about the disadvantages. Since we are going to say we believe that the advantages outweigh them, we most probably won’t talk about the drawbacks in detail.

Note that based on our essay plan, it is essential to discuss the advantages in far more detail in our response.

Now, it is time to brainstorm and generate ideas for our 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. What are the advantages of driverless cars? What do you think? Make a list of all the ideas that come to your mind.

Here are some of the advantages of “all cars becoming driverless” that we can include in our essay:

We can talk about:

• Safer roads.

Explain more:

• Humans break the rules: ex. higher speeds; higher risk of accidents.
• No driver errors, all traffic rules obeyed.
• Computer-controlled driving: no breach of law.

Did you have this one on your list? Any other advantages on your mind? Let’s write down a few more:

We can talk about:

• More comfortable driving.

Explain more:

• No drivers needed: watch videos without distracting the driver.
• Sleep with peace of mind.
• No driving fatigues.
• No route searching.

Here is another advantage:

We can talk about:

• Less commuting time.

Explain more:

• Computer-controlled traffic: optimized car movements; fewer traffic jams.
• Safely increasing speed limits: shorter journeys.

Of course, when practicing brainstorming, you can write down as many ideas as possible. You can even search the Internet and use other resources to find relevant ideas. 

But for writing a 250-word essay in 40 minutes, only 1-2 supporting ideas for each body paragraph would be enough, given you further develop each with more developing ideas. 

At this point, we have more than enough ideas to include in our essay to:

– support the main ideas within each body paragraph.

– further develop the supporting ideas.

– and clearly talk about our opinion and our position throughout the essay. 

The outcome of a brainstorming process is called a mind map. This is a clear picture of your ideas and the best guide once you start writing an essay. 

Preparing a relevant, efficient mind map:

• significantly increases your writing speed and clarity. 
• reduces the chance of writing off-topic.
• will help you improve your writing score. 

So far, we have:

• analyzed the question: understood the topic and the task.
• chosen relevant and appropriate content. 
• decided how to organize our content. 
• done brainstorming, generated supporting and developing ideas, and created a mind map. 

And now, we are more than ready to move on to the next step: writing the essay.  

Step 4- Write down your essay. 

We will start our essay by writing a good introduction. Then we will write our body paragraphs, and finally, our concluding paragraph. 

Writing “The Introduction”

Usually, for an introductory paragraph, we begin writing about some general but relevant topics. 

For example, in this case, the general topics to include in our introduction can be:

• technological advancements/ modern technologies/ future technologies.
• unimaginable changes in the future.
• improvements in the transportation system.
• transportation infrastructure, traffic, accidents, and injuries.
• controversies relating to fundamental technology changes.
• …

And then, we can mention the main idea within the essay, which is an essential element of the introduction paragraph. 

But what is the main idea of our essay going to be? Our main idea will be: 

“I believe that the advantages of all cars becoming driverless outweigh its disadvantages.”

In other words:

“I acknowledge that all cars becoming driverless has some disadvantages, but the advantages are far more significant.”

This main idea includes:

– the topic: all cars becoming driverless in the future.

– a clear response to the task:  believe there are more advantages than disadvantages.

In response to a question like this that has asked your opinion directly, it is necessary to clearly mention your position on the main topic.

Always try to start your introductory paragraph in the most exciting way possible. 

Assume that you are going to read an article about this topic. What kind of an introductory sentence would grab your full attention and excite you to read the rest of the article? The answer to this question will guide you in writing the first sentence of your introductory paragraph. 

Let’s start writing the introduction.

First, an attention-grabbing sentence, followed by a general introduction:

Technology is taking us to places beyond our imaginations, beyond our dreams. Predicting the changes technology will bring into our lives is almost impossible. 

Second: talking about the main topic:

Technology is taking us to places beyond our imaginations, beyond our dreams. Predicting the changes technology will bring into our lives is almost impossible. Making all vehicles driverless is one of those creative ideas that can quickly turn into our living reality. But how would such a change impact our lives? 

Third: state your position clearly:

Technology is taking us to places beyond our imaginations, beyond our dreams. Predicting the changes technology will bring into our lives is almost impossible. Making all vehicles driverless is one of those creative ideas that can quickly turn into our living reality. But how would such a change impact our lives? Though a few drawbacks might first come to our mind, the benefits are so substantial that they make such a change highly favorable.

In this part of your introductory paragraph, you have introduced the essay’s main idea to the readers: that such a change will have more positive effects. 

Everything you include in your essay should be relevant to this main topic, or you will end up writing an inconsistent, off-topic essay. 

To better understand what an off-topic essay is, you may read the following article:
Off-topic Responses in IELTS Writing Task 2 and How to Avoid Them

Now it is time to start writing our body paragraphs.

Writing “The Body” paragraphs.

The main idea in our first body paragraph is:

– to acknowledge that there are a few disadvantages. 

So, we can begin our paragraph like this:

Such a drastic change will probably have some disadvantages. To begin with, …

Now is the time to look at our min map and choose the ideas we need to complete this paragraph. We can support the main idea using our supporting ideas. So, we can continue writing our paragraph like this:

Such a drastic technological change will probably have some disadvantages. To begin with, many people will not be able to afford such vehicles. 

We will always continue developing our supporting ideas further by explaining more:

Such a drastic technological change will probably have some disadvantages. To begin with, many people will not be able to afford such vehicles. Advanced technologies required to manufacture them will result in an astronomical price, allowing fewer people to have personal cars. 

Note how the main idea is supported by the supporting idea and how the supporting idea is further explained by the developing ideas. 

We would have used more developing ideas if we were to focus on disadvantages. However, the aim of this paragraph is to only acknowledge that there are a few disadvantages. Therefore, we will not use the rest of our developing ideas from our mind map. 

Let’s use another supporting idea from our mind map to talk about disadvantages and develop it further:

Such a drastic technological change will probably have some disadvantages. To begin with, many people will not be able to afford such vehicles. Advanced technologies required to manufacture them will result in an astronomical price, allowing fewer people to have personal cars. Another downside would be the inevitable contribution to high unemployment rates, as many people such as truck and taxi drivers or driving instructors and examiners will lose their jobs. 

  
Note that the supporting and developing ideas are merged in the final sentence of this body paragraph.

This is a very coherent paragraph because:

– It has a clear main idea. 

– The main idea is clearly supported by supporting ideas.

– The supporting ideas are further discussed using the developing ideas.

Remember that further developing your supporting ideas is another crucial element of getting a band score of 7 in IELTS Writing Task 2. 

Now, it is time to focus on writing the 2nd and 3rd body paragraphs. They will both focus on the advantages of driverless cars. That will be the main idea within both paragraphs. 

So, we can start writing the next paragraph like this:

But regardless, the positive effects of such an enormous change are so overwhelming that they leave us with no choice but to embrace it. 

Note how this sentence tells the readers that you, as the writer, believe there are more advantages to this change. 

This sentence reminds the readers of the main topic of the essay. You said the same thing in the introductory paragraph and will say the same thing in the concluding paragraph. This is a fantastic way to make your essay coherent. 

Now, we can support the main idea using our supporting ideas. So, we can continue writing our paragraph like this:

But regardless, the positive effects of such an enormous change are so profound that they leave us with no choice but to embrace it. The most significant advantage of making all cars autonomous is having much safer roads.

We will always continue developing our supporting ideas further by explaining more:

But regardless, the positive effects of such an enormous change are so profound that they leave us with no choice but to embrace it. The most significant advantage of making all cars autonomous is having much safer roads. As opposed to human drivers that frequently break the rules, there will be no breach of law by driverless vehicles. These computer-operated automobiles will obey all traffic rules, lowering the risk of accidents. 

To continue writing this paragraph, I choose to write about “comfortable driving” as another supporting idea, so here is how I finish my 2nd paragraph:

But regardless, the positive effects of such an enormous change are so profound that they leave us with no choice but to embrace it. The most significant advantage of making all cars autonomous is having much safer roads. As opposed to human drivers that frequently break the rules, there will be no breach of law by driverless vehicles. These computer-operated automobiles will obey all traffic rules, lowering the risk of accidents. Moreover, the driving experience will become much more comfortable. With no drivers needed, everyone can enjoy the ride with peace of mind. For example, they can sleep or use video screens without worrying about disturbing drivers. 

Now, it is time to write our last body paragraph:

The main idea will continue to be the advantages of making all cars driverless. 

So we can start writing the next paragraph like this:

Another benefit that single-handedly makes it worthy of making all cars driverless is the remarkable reduction in commuting times. 

And then, like in the previous paragraphs, we can support the main idea using our supporting ideas and continue developing our supporting ideas further by explaining more: 

Another benefit that single-handedly makes it worthy of making all cars driverless is the remarkable reduction in commuting times. Controlled by computers, all car movements will be significantly optimized. As a result, the traffic will be coordinated much more smoothly, leading to fewer traffic jams. We can also safely increase speed limits and therefore experience much shorter journeys. 

I remind you one more time that you need to further develop your supporting ideas to get a 7+ score on the IELTS Writing test. 

Now it is time to write our final paragraph, the conclusion. 

Writing “The Conclusion”

For writing an effective concluding paragraph, you need to include 2 main elements:

1. Review the main ideas and main points that you have already mentioned in your essay to this point. Do not include any new ideas. 

2. Directly answer all parts of the task, and if the task asks you for your opinion, be sure to state your position on the topic clearly. 

For example, in this question, the task has clearly asked you for your opinion. So, you must mention your position clearly. 

Your position in the concluding paragraph should be the same as your position in the introduction and be in coordination with whatever you have written in your body paragraphs. 

So, we can start writing the conclusion like this:

In conclusion, 

We always begin with a linking word to signal that this is our concluding paragraph, such as “in conclusion.”

And then continue to write down the main point of the essay:

In conclusion, the advantages of making all vehicles driverless far outweigh its disadvantages. 

Even such a short paragraph can act as a very effective concluding paragraph because it has the main two elements:

– It reviews the essay’s main idea, which is that cars becoming driverless have more advantages. 

– It directly answers the task. 

However, if you have enough time, I advise you to include the main points of the body paragraphs in your conclusion:

In conclusion, it is true that making all vehicles driverless has a few disadvantages. The cars will have an exorbitant price, and the technology change will increase the unemployment rate. However, the advantages of such a transformation, such as having much safer roads, more comfortable driving experiences, and less commuting time, are so overwhelming that they make us forget the negative side. Hopefully, we will experience such a change sooner than the soonest predictions.

As you can see, the main points of the entire essay are present in the concluding paragraph. Also, our position has been stated clearly and directly. 

Did you notice the last sentence?

It is a creative final sentence just to make the article more impactful. 

Like your introductory paragraph that I suggested beginning with a sentence that excites the reader, here you can finish your paragraph with a sentence that would stick in the reader’s mind or challenges him to think more about this topic. 

This is another good way to make your essay influential, an essay that will stand out. 

When the readers finish reading the article by reading this sentence, probably they will continue to think about this topic. They might start thinking:

– When is the soonest prediction for such a change to happen?

– When will such a change happen?

– Will we really be able to see that change in our lifetime?

Let’s focus on another sentence:

However, the advantages… are so considerable that they make us forget the negative side.

This is a very effective paraphrasing of the following sentence:

However, the advantages… far outweigh the disadvantages. 

The second sentence is very common, but the first one is much less used. Therefore, it is a better choice.  

And now, it is time to move on to our final step. 

Step 5- Read your essay and edit it.

Of the 40 minutes you have for writing task 2, allocate at least 2-3 minutes to editing your essay. 

Focus on:

• correcting your dictation mistakes
• correcting your punctuation mistakes
• correcting your grammatical mistakes
• replacing some words, especially repeated ones, with more advanced/ more appropriate ones

Ideally, once you write an essay, you will spend time revising it: adding or removing some ideas and changing the order of some sentences to make your writing as coherent as possible. 

However, in IELTS essays, you will not have enough time to do so in the end.

Therefore, focusing only on punctuation, dictation, grammar, and vocabulary is all you need to do. 

Vocabulary and grammar check

Once you finish writing an essay, it is a practical exercise to read your essay once again and answer the two following questions:

1. Are there words that I can replace?

• Are there any repeating words? can I replace them with synonyms? Can I add new words to make use of advanced/ topic-specific collocations?

2. Is there a sentence structure that I can change? Can I break very long sentences into two short sentences to make my ideas more straightforward? Can I change my sentence structure to have complex sentences?

For example, here is one of the sentences we wrote previously:

As opposed to human drivers that frequently break the rules and increase the risks of accidents and injuries, there will be no breach of law by driverless cars. These cars are operated by an integrated computer system, resulting in no driver error and a much safer driving ecosystem.

This is an edited version of the following sentence:

As opposed to human drivers that frequently break the rules and increase the risks of accidents and injuries, driverless cars will not breach any law as they are controlled by an integrated computer system, resulting in a much safer driving ecosystem. 

You will agree with me that the second version is very long. Won’t you?

Long sentences are hard to read; therefore, the reader will find it difficult to follow your ideas easily. 

Of course, such edits require much practice and guidance. 

Conclusion

Well done. 

This article has helped you improve your skills for better performance in IELTS Writing Task 2.

We focused on practicing writing an essay in response to a very recent writing question published by Cambridge, book 16, test 4. This was a step-by-step practice guide for writing a sample response to an IELTS Writing Task 2 question. 

Please note that the essay plan we created for our response is only one way of responding to this question. 

Can you think of other essay plans for writing a response to this question? 

It is always a good idea to focus on recent writing questions published by well-known publications such as Cambridge, and you can practice responding to those questions following the same 5 steps. This is one of the most efficient ways to practice IELTS Writing and will help you improve your skills in:

• understanding the question (the topic and the task)
• choosing a relevant and effective content
• organizing your content effectively
• brainstorming and generating ideas
• supporting main ideas
• developing supporting ideas
• writing an effective introductory paragraph
• writing effective body paragraphs
• writing an effective concluding paragraph
• editing your essay

As a conclusion to this blog post, here is a summary of the 5 steps we took:

1. Read and understand the question: understand the topic, understand the task, and think about appropriate content for your essay.

2. Come up with an effective essay plan.

3. Brainstorm and generate ideas for each body paragraph. Try to differentiate between main, supporting, and developing ideas.

4. Write down your essay.

5. Read your essay and edit it.

And here is our sample essay:

Technology is taking us to places beyond our imaginations, and beyond our dreams. Predicting the changes technology will bring into our lives is almost impossible. Making all vehicles driverless is one of those creative ideas that can quickly turn into our living reality. But how would such a change impact our lives? Though a few drawbacks might first come to our mind, the benefits are so substantial that they make such a change highly favorable.

Such a drastic technological change will probably have some disadvantages. To begin with, many people will not be able to afford such vehicles. Advanced technologies required to manufacture them will result in an astronomical price, allowing fewer people to have personal cars. Another downside would be the inevitable contribution to high unemployment rates, as many people such as truck and taxi drivers or driving instructors and examiners will lose their jobs. 

But regardless, the positive effects of such an enormous change are so profound that they leave us with no choice but to embrace it. The most significant advantage of making all cars autonomous is having much safer roads. As opposed to human drivers that frequently break the rules, there will be no breach of the law by driverless vehicles. These computer-operated automobiles will obey all traffic rules, lowering the risk of accidents. Moreover, the driving experience will become much more comfortable. With no drivers needed, everyone can enjoy the ride with peace of mind. For example, they can sleep or use video screens without worrying about disturbing drivers. 

Another benefit that single-handedly makes it worthy of making all cars driverless is the remarkable reduction in commuting times. Controlled by computers, all car movements will be significantly optimized. As a result, the traffic will be coordinated much more smoothly, leading to fewer traffic jams. We can also safely increase speed limits and therefore experience much shorter journeys. 

In conclusion, it is true that making all vehicles driverless has a few disadvantages. The cars will have an exorbitant price, and the technology change will increase the unemployment rate. However, the advantages of such a transformation, such as having much safer roads, more comfortable driving experiences, and less commuting time, are so overwhelming that they make us forget the negative side. Hopefully, we will experience such a change sooner than the soonest predictions.

If you found this article valuable, please share it with others. 

And if you have any comments or questions, feel free to post them below. 

Wish you the best of luck and see you soon.