Understanding the task in IELTS essays-Adapted from Dominic Cole's IELTS blog

Perhaps the number 1 rule in IELTS writing is to answer the question. This may sound obvious, but it is surprising how many candidates fail to get it right. Even though their English may be high quality, they won’t get the grade they need if their IELTS essay doesn’t address the question.

Topics and questions

The starting point is to recognise that there is in fact a question to be answered and that this is not the same as writing about a general topic. To understand this, read this IELTS essay question:

The first cars appeared on the British roads in 1888. By the year 2000 there may be as many as 29 million vehicles on British roads.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Alternative forms of transport should be encouraged and international laws introduced to control car ownership and use.

Now, the topic is clearly transport and more particularly road congestion or perhaps pollution. But, and I cannot emphasise this enough, that topic is not the question and it is not sufficient to write about that topic in general.
Reading the question
Remember to identify what the exact task is. Do not confuse this with the general topic of the essay and background information given in the essay question

To get this right, it is important to read and think about the question very carefully – time spent focussing on the question is never wasted. Helpfully, the essay questions are almost always structured in the same way. Often they come in 3 parts: background information, problem and task

1. Background information

Very often, they are introduced with some background information, here:

The first car appeared on British roads in 1888. By the year 2000 there may be as many as 29 million vehicles on British roads.

This is background information only. Not to be ignored, as it can be a vital source of both ideas and vocabulary.

2. The problem

Next comes an opinion based statement which introduces the question and poses a specific problem. In our example:

Alternative forms of transport should be encouraged and international laws introduced to control car use and ownership.

This is the part to note. The topic may be transport in general; but reading carefully it is more precisely:

alternative forms of transport

international legislation of transport

the relationship between the state and the individual

the concept of car use and ownership (not necessarily the same thing)

3. The task

The final part of the question is the task itself. It tells you how to write your essay: whether you should be commenting. comparing or arguing. This can help you structure your essay.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Reading the question in this way, you should now see how precise they tend to be. The examiner is looking for an equally precise answer: not the repetition of the essay you wrote a few weeks back on a similar looking topic.

Moral: read the question – the whole question

Your teacher,
Jinan Basma