How To Plan & Write ielts discussion Essays

How To Plan & Write
IELTS Discussion Essays
Students can find it difficult to identify IELTS discussion essays and often confuse them with either opinion essays or advantage and disadvantage essays.
This is one of the issues I’ll be covering in this lesson. I’m also going to show you how to plan and write discussion essays step-by-step.
Here’s what we’ll be covering:

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  Identifying IELTS discussion essays 
  

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  3 Common mistakes
  

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  Essay structure
  

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  How to plan
  

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  How to write an introduction
  

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  How to write main body paragraphs
  

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  How to write a conclusion
  

Click the links to see lessons on each of these Task 2 essay writing topics. 
Once you understand the process, practice on past questions. Take your time at first and gradually speed up until you can plan and write an essay of at least 250 words in the 40 minutes allowed in the exam.


The Question
The first part of the question for an IELTS discussion essay will be a statement containing two opposing views.
You will then be asked to discuss both sides of the argument and give your own opinion. Here is some typical wording that might be used:

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  Discuss both views and give your opinion. 
  

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  Discuss both these views and then give your own opinion. 
  

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  Discuss both sides of this argument and give your own opinion.
  

Here's a question from a past test paper.

Some people think that zoos are cruel and should be closed down. Others, however, believe that zoos can be useful in protecting wild animals.
Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.

I’ll be using this question to guide you through the process of planning and writing an IELTS discussion essay.

The key to identifying this type of question is the fact that you are required to discuss BOTH views. This is different to opinion questions where you must decide between two opposing views and make an argument to support your own opinion.
Opinion essays, also known as ‘agree or disagree’ essays, a generally worded in one of these ways: