IELTS Writing Task 2 valuable tips for success

• Your audience is an educated non-specialist person and not a university lecturer like the case in Writing Task 1. Therefore, your style need not be as formal as Writing Task 1.
• You are supposed to give your opinions, that is, argue for/against the subject.
• Your essay should include 250 words and you should write it in approximately 40 minutes.
• Before writing your essay, you should spend around 5 minutes planning what you are going to write. In this brainstorming activity, you should consider the following:
  1. Read the questions and the instructions carefully.
  2. Analyze the topic and the focus.
  3. Decide what you think about the question.
  4. Brainstorm ideas to be used in your answer.
  5. Fit those ideas into an essay plan divided into paragraphs.
  6. Begin writing your introduction.

What is brainstorming?

Brainstorming refers to a mental activity in which you think about as many ideas on a subject as possible. For instance, take the following statement as the topic of your essay:

“The internet will bring about a new freedom of information and so narrow the technology gap between developed and developing countries.”

Through brainstorming about the question above, you might come up with the following ideas:

• Difficult to censor
• Makes the copyright laws hard to enforce so difficult to keep technology secret
• Computing skills are necessary to operate the internet so new technology gap developing.
• Only the rich can afford access to the internet.
• Greater access to information.
• World-wide communication possible.

After brainstorming ideas, you should now organize them.