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How to Plan for an IELTS Task 2 Essay
Many students start writing an essay without any plan. They think it's a waste of time. If you also think so, you might be wrong. Because, we saw many strong candidates who started writing immediately after receiving the question paper, and came up with a below 6 band score in Writing. Very unfortunate.
The fact is, when you don't have a clear plan about what exactly you are going to write, there is a maximum possibility of writing-deleting-rewriting-editing etc. Eventually, you will complete the essay with a number of words, but those words might not give the answer that examiners expect in the essay.
Examiners look for some important criteria that your essay must fulfill. You will lose marks if your essay fails to meet them, regardless how many fancy words or how advanced grammar you used. That's why you need a proper plan that helps you meet the criteria for a standard IELTS Task 2 essay .
Remember our words, you are never going to waste your time because of planning, rather it will reward you with a band 9 essay. All you need is just apply the proven planning technique that we're going to illustrate below:
A Simple Math
Look, you have almost 40 minutes to answer an IELTS Task 2 essay question. If you spend just 10 minutes in planning, still you have 30 minutes left. That means, if you write 9 words per minute, still you can easily write 270 words. And definitely you can write more than 9 words a minute.
Therefore, please spend the first 10 minutes for planning, and write for the remaining 30 minutes. You can write around 270 words comfortably. Most importantly, once you have an organized plan for the essay, you don't need to write-delete-rewrite-edit etc. Rather you can keep writing fast, smoothly and confidently.
How to Plan the Essay
Let's see how you can go through the planning stages of an IELTS Task 2 essay. Don't forget to click on each item to dive into the detailed discussion:
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Analyze the question (3 minutes)
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Generate ideas (3 minutes)
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Find relevant examples (2 minutes)
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Select special vocabulary (2 minutes)
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Apply in our magic structure (Let's Go....Start writing in the magic structure)
We know you are wondering "how can I go through all these steps in 10 minutes🤔? If I go through all of the stages stated above, how can I manage time for writing 🙄? "
Trust us, this is not too much work. We're discussing here one by one, that's why it seems too much to you. When you apply it in exam, you will do most of the tasks in your head. You will write only a few keywords. Therefore, it will never take much time.
However, in the first few practices, you might need some extra minutes. When you will be pretty handy applying this techniques, you will complete this part spending even less than 8 minutes. Therefore, please don't give up. If you care about the awaiting massive reward, please keep applying this planning technique. This 10 minute planning period will pay off, we guarantee.
Make sure you click on each title to go through the detailed discussion. We are going to show you step by step how you can develop a band 9 essay plan.
1. Analyze the question (3 minutes)
From our experience, we saw even many confident IELTS candidates received a very poor band score in Writing. They told us that they didn't analyse the question before starting the essay. Then we recommended them our Question Analysis Strategy. Many of them attended for the second time and shared their experience how the strategy helped them achieve 7+ band scores. In fact, analyzing the question is the first and the most important stage of your essay planning. Click here to go through our secret technique how you can analyze a question for an IELTS Task 2 question.
2. Generate ideas (3 minutes)
You might get a question topic that you have no idea to write about. This could be a very unexpected situation. However, you cannot escape it. You have to answer the question, regardless how familiar you are with the topic. What will you do in this situation?
Don't panic. We're here for you. You can always generate ideas. In fact idea generation is the heart of your essay planning. Remember, matters little whether the topic is known to you or not, you just need to know the strategies to generate ideas for any IELTS Writing topic. Click on the title to go through our special techniques for idea generation. This strategy will help you write a band 9 essay straight away.
3. Find relevant examples (2 minutes)
This is an important and a quite interesting stage at the same time. Important because you have to provide examples supporting your logic, otherwise you will lose marks. Interesting because many students consider it as the toughest part, which is actually opposite. The fact is, the example part is tough for you only if you keep searching for examples in your memories. But don't forget, this is just a language test, not a knowledge test. You can always make up examples as long as it's relevant, and this should be a very easy task. Click on the title for our detailed discussion on how to apply examples smartly in an IELTS Task 2 essay.
4. Select your vocabulary (2 minutes)
In this stage, write down some special vocabulary related to the discussion. These can be some synonyms, idioms, paraphrases or some special expressions. However, just choosing words might not be enough, you need to be aware of the word forms (noun, adjective, verb, adverb etc.) as well. Remember, don't think too much in this section, because your structured discussion is more important than fancy words. Just going with the topic related basic vocabulary is absolutely fine. Click on the title to jump to our complete guide on IELTS vocabulary.
In this stage, write down some special vocabulary related to the discussion. These can be some synonyms, idioms, paraphrases or some special expressions. However, just choosing words might not be enough, you need to be aware of the word forms (noun, adjective, verb, adverb etc.) as well. Remember, don't think too much in this section, because your structured discussion is more important than fancy words. Just going with the topic related basic vocabulary is absolutely fine. Click on the title to jump to our complete guide on IELTS vocabulary.
You've just spent the first 10 minutes and developed a band 9 essay plan for IELTS Task 2. Now you have all the ingredients you need for the essay. It's time to start using them in your writing. However, your writing has to be in an organized academic structure. Otherwise, your all the planning will be of no avail. We've developed the easiest and smartest Task 2 essay structure that you will ever find. Click on the title to go into our band 9 magic structure.
Up next:
Don't forget we help students with a guarantee of 7+ band score in IELTS Writing section. You can check the details how to avail the maximum benefit from our IELTS Writing Assistance.
Don't ignore the resources below:
Check the detailed discussion of all the types of IELTS Task 2 essays:
Don't forget to check the following resources as well: