This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1564.
Why restraint is vital for IELTS Task 2 opinions.
Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner-trained IELTS whiz Aubrey Carter and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.
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When it comes to writing task two, is it okay to change your opinion throughout the essay?
Doesn't this show a depth of thinking?
Find out what this does to your score and why you should avoid it.
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Hello there, Aubrey.
How's it going today?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you?
Good.
You ready to get into a little IELTS today?
Yes.
We're talking about opinions today, which are so vital on IELTS.
Lindsay, does your opinion change often?
I would actually say, yeah.
The more I know about something, the more nuance I add to my understanding of something it does change.
It shifts.
It doesn't usually go from one side to the other, but I add more nuance.
Definitely.
Yeah, this came up in Open Conversation Club this week.
For those of you who aren't familiar, anyone in any of our courses is invited to this weekly conversation practice with our entire community.
And there were a couple of things that were sort of controversial that had come up in a couple breakout rooms.
Amazing practice for students to talk about controversial topics.
And one of them was something that I've definitely changed my opinion about, which was about the death penalty, which is very common in the United States.
But from what I believed as a young person to now, my opinion has really fluctuated.
And this is common for a lot of people.
Opinions change.
Yeah.
And specifically about that issue.
I know a lot of people whose opinions have shifted in one way or the other around the death penalty.
So that's a good one.
That's a good example.
Um, where?
What does this have to do with ielts, aubrey?
What do we need to?
Uh, so we're talking about task two, especially today.
You do also share your opinion a lot on ielts speaking, but for task two, it is part of the scoring system.
You are required to share your opinion clearly and consistently throughout.
We got a great question about this that we're going to share.
We're going to dive into how you can do this to increase your scores, All right,
So this question comes from Hope.
And Hope had attended one of our amazing IELTS webinars.
So I will go ahead and read Hope's question.
You ready?
Yes.
I wrote the IELTS test a while ago.
And we would typically say I took the IELTS test a while ago, right?
In American English.
This might be more in the UK to say I wrote the exam.
In the US, we say I took the test.
Yes, exactly.
Sometimes you hear people say I sat the exam too, which we don't say as much, to sit an exam or sit for an exam.
We say take a test.
So anyways, in the introduction of writing part two general, I wrote my opinion of the essay in the introduction.
I had no time to include it in the conclusion.
Someone said once you write your opinion in the opening and do not include it in the conclusion, you do not lose marks.
Is this correct?
Such a good question.
This is really interesting.
We will answer it today and dive into everything you need to know for opinions on task two.
But be sure if you have not yet to hit follow right here on IELTS Energy.
We share strategies, everything you need to know to get the score you need on the IELTS exam.
Yes.
All right.
Perfect.
So guys hit that follow button now.
So what we love to do here at IELTS Energy and at Three Keys IELTS, our famous course we like to come back to the scoring system, because a lot of classes tutors, will tell you all these things but then you go to verify what you hear and you can't find anything in the scoring system but what they've told you.
So everything that we teach here comes directly back to the examiner and the scoring system.
Right, Aubrey.
Exactly.
So let's dive into the scoring system here.
It requires your opinion to be quote unquote, clear and consistent throughout the essay.
But it's interesting how the wording is different for the different scores.
So first of all, for a band seven, Lindsay, what is required of the opinion?
Yeah.
So what the scoring system says is for a band seven?
The candidate presents a clear position throughout the response.
And then for band six, it says presents a relevant position, although conclusions may be unclear or repetitive.
And what about for band five, Lindsay?
Band five, which most people need to get higher than a band five.
Right.
The candidate expresses a position, but development may not always be clear and there may be no conclusions drawn.
So I see these as very different steps.
Yes.
Yeah, this is really interesting.
And then for band eight and nine, it just says clear and consistent throughout the essay.
So it is tricky.
You read those.
You're like, hey, what exactly does that mean?
Hope's question is really valid.
Does that mean I can just say it in the introduction and call it good?
So then we have to look at this language, right?
If it says throughout the essay, it is not satisfying that requirement to only have it one place.
So we're going to talk about what it needs to look like.
Where should your opinion be?
And what should it look like in your essay to get seven or higher?
Yeah, exactly.
So for this episode and for many of our episodes on this show, we assume that many of you are aiming for that seven or higher.
So we're going to break down this statement.
Presents a clear position throughout the response, right?
Break it down and see what that means.
Exactly.
That is the goal.
You want to get seven or higher for task response.
That way, because it's an overall score, there are four scores you're aiming.
There's going to be an average of those four.
So if you happen to get a little bit lower on grammar, for example, if you can have a higher task response score, it'll pull up that overall score.
Yeah, let's make sure we can pull the levers that we can pull more easily for ourselves, right?
And this would be one of the things, the levers to be sure you're answering, you're fulfilling the task.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So let's dive in with our tips here.
Our first tip is to use clear language.
And this is interesting because many students and you'll see this posted online.
You're thinking that it's too informal to use first person and say I feel that it is my opinion that you may have learned this in relation to academic writing.
You may have even seen or heard someone say this about IELTS writing, but this is not the case.
Not the case, yeah.
And I understand it.
I mean, some people go into IELTS tutoring if they maybe have a history of academic tutoring and they teach you the same things, but it's not the same things that you need to learn, right?
So that's the problem.
Yeah.
So it is okay.
Yeah, you should use phrases that clearly state your personal opinion.
For example, I believe...
I feel that.
It is my opinion that.
And then in the conclusion, something like I maintain right when we're rephrasing, paraphrasing our opinion.
And that's a good point there.
Aubrey you said in the conclusion, would you ever use.
I maintain in the beginning, like in the introduction
No, because that means the same as I still believe.
Yeah.
So in the introduction, we're using different phrases to introduce an opinion.
And then in the conclusion, we want to use phrases that mean that we are restating our opinion.
So we need a variety of vocabulary, but the opinion needs to stay clear, right?
Throughout the whole essay.
Good.
Yeah.
So let's go into number two.
Our second tip here is you do need to share your opinion throughout your essay, right?
So first, clearly state your opinion in the introduction.
Should be about three sentences, your introduction.
So you're just restating the topic in that first sentence.
The second sentence, you share your opinion clearly.
Which side do you agree with?
And then your third sentence is like a thesis statement describing what you will cover in the essay.
Nice.
Okay.
And then next, you'll share your opinion in the body paragraph.
Is that right, Aubrey?
Exactly.
In the body paragraph where you defend your side of the issue.
You will use clear language to state your opinion again, so that it is is seen throughout the essay, right?
And then you're going to restate it in the conclusion.
Of course, you don't want to just say it word for word again and again.
You're paraphrasing, you're restating it.
And this is a skill.
This will need to be practiced.
But in order for the examiner to give you band seven or higher, they do need to see your opinion clearly throughout the essay.
Love it.
So introduction, body, conclusion.
This is what it means to share your opinion throughout.
Throughout is the entire thing, right?
Exactly.
So good.
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All right, Aubrey, we're back for tip number three for today.
Should I?
Well, I guess we could ask this as a question.
I mean, opinion.
OK, well, can my opinion change throughout the essay?
Right.
This is interesting because, you know, your opinion about the death penalty can absolutely change.
Even in an IELTS speaking question, you could sort of start answering it one way and then be like you know what.
That's not actually what I think.
I believe this.
Absolutely.
But in the task two essay your, the scoring system requires for your opinion to be clear and consistent throughout the essay.
What does that mean?
Consistent doesn't change.
So that's really interesting actually, that in all over the speaking test, part two, part three uh, you can change as long as you are articulating it, it doesn't really matter.
But here it really matters, it has to be the same throughout the essay.
Yes, and this is a very common mistake for students to sort of change their idea, change their mind as they're writing the essay.
And so then in the conclusion they'll actually like, contradict their original opinion or, even more commonly, we'll see new ideas, new opinions in the conclusion that are just sort of different from how they started originally.
It is vital that you stick to your brainstorm, that you recheck, look back, make sure that you're saying the same opinion in the introduction and the conclusion.
Yeah.
So when it comes to If you're doing that, if you're changing your opinion throughout the essay, you could end up with that band five or six for this part of the scoring system.
Right, Aubrey?
Exactly right.
So we're going to give an example here of a task two topic and how this might look if you accidentally change your opinion or what it should look in order to score seven or higher.
Do you want to share that task two with us?
Here's a question.
Here is the question.
Modern technology now allows rapid and uncontrolled access to information in many countries.
This is a danger to our societies.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Okay, so let's look at this.
The opinion you provide in the introduction might be.
I agree with those who feel that new technology should not have unlimited access to data right.
So then, in the body paragraphs, one of your ideas might be related to online threats and the necessity of security measures.
And then we'll build that out with some details, right?
Build that out? to support your ideas.
But then in the conclusion of the essay a student might write.
In conclusion, I believe the real issue is a lack of awareness about online threats.
And you could see how they maybe had sort of like started having that idea as they write.
But this is a new idea that would have to be supported in body paragraphs.
It makes your opinion inconsistent.
Yeah.
So it might feel repetitive if you feel like you have to repeat the same opinion three times, at least three times, multiple times, throughout the essay, but it's not.
Because again, we're using different vocabulary.
But yeah, here the student's thinking has evolved, which is great for life.
Right.
But not for IELTS writing test too.
Right.
So instead, the conclusion needs to be a restate of the opinion provided early in the essay.
For example, it could be.
In sum, I believe there should be limitations placed on the information available to modern technology.
So you see, I'm restating it here.
I'm using different words, but really, it's the same opinion that I put in the introduction.
It's kind of what we would call restraint, right?
This is like writing restraint.
IELTS restraint.
How do we get a high score?
By restraining, by resisting the temptation to seem more intelligent, I guess, to articulate that our thinking is profound.
We actually don't need to go that deep.
We don't need to go into that much evolution of our thoughts.
And this is also a testament to you know, we tell you a lot that you need to be taking in a lot of ideas, watching the news, listening to podcasts, because you, if you get a task to topic that you've never thought about before, you might find yourself coming up with an opinion, changing your mind as you write and sort of grappling with this as you write.
You want that to ideally you want to be familiar with your task to topic.
You've already thought about your opinions.
You've already done that grappling before test day.
Yeah, it's almost like we need to bake in thinking time into our study plan, which in Three Keys Outs.
We do, because the thinking time is where we assign you extra resources.
Podcasts, like Aubrey mentioned, news channels movies, TV shows, where you're actually thinking about the issues.
Because that's what I do when I listen to the Daily or the Wall Street Journal podcast, Aubrey.
I'll think about what I think about this constantly as I'm listening, right?
Yes, absolutely.
Every time you listen to a podcast or TV show, don't just listen for interesting vocabulary.
Also, think about, write about, talk out loud about how you feel on this issue.
What is your opinion and why?
And I think that's kind of the takeaway.
So the way we perform on the day of the test is the way we prepare, Aubrey, don't you think?
In our study plan.
Yes, definitely.
Love it.
So good.
What a good episode today.
Thanks for preparing this for us today, Aubrey.
And guys, if you love our style, it's all about scoring that seven or higher.
And for us, it's all about coming back to the scoring system.
That's what we focus on.
We don't make anything up here about IELTS, right?
It's all about what the examiner looks for, what the people that are grading your writing test look for.
You can find everything we teach you right inside the scoring system.
Really good stuff.
So to find our course, go to allearsenglish.com slash keys, K-E-Y-S.
Awesome.
Aubrey, see you next time.
Have a good day.
Awesome.
See you guys next time.
Bye.
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