How to answer “To what extent do you agree or disagree?” task 2 questions

Analyze the question – make sure you totally understand what you are supposed to answer.

Spend a couple of minutes reading and underlining the key words.  

Some people believe that professional workers such as doctors and teachers should be paid more than sports and entertainment personalities. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Give your opinion and relevant examples.  (Source:  unknown)

Determine your position

You can 100% agree, 100% disagree or partially agree 

Position:   they should be paid more but this is not feasible in the real world

Brainstorm for ideas – aim for at least two ideas for each paragraph

Paragraph 1

Doctors are vital and deserve a lot of money

Teachers educate our children and also deserve to make a lot

Paragraph 2

There are valid reasons why entertainers and athletes make a lot of money

Not all singers/ athletes in these professions make large amounts of money

Brainstorm ideas to support your initial ideas

Support can be an example, further explanation, a definition, or any statement explaining why or how your main idea is true.

Support:  Doctors save lives and carry enormous responsibility for their patients’ wellbeing

For more help with your IELTS Writing, join our IELTS Online Course.

Planning your essay writing

Introduction

Start by rephrasing the prompt. Make sure you include all the sides of the topic that the prompt addresses. 

State your position. If you partially agree you can use a “while” statement: While it is true that doctors and teachers perform priceless services, on the whole I believe that it is impossible for them to be paid what top entertainers are paid. 

Your introduction should be 3 or 4 sentences. Do not waste time getting into details in the introduction – save these for your body paragraphs.

Example introduction:

There are numerous jobs where it could be argued that people are not paid nearly enough for what they do, as in the case of doctors and teachers. Some, in fact, say they should be paid more than sports or entertainment stars.   While I understand the logic behind this, the world works differently and such a shift is impossible.

Essay structure

Start with a topic sentence that introduces the central idea of the paragraph.

Doubtless doctors and teachers deserve to earn a great deal of money for the services they provide.  

Introduce your first main idea.

Doctors save lives on a daily basis and take on a great responsibility in caring for their patients and their health.  

Follow this with support .

This is a skill that requires great intellect, arduous studying, and should be compensated accordingly.

Add a second main idea for teachers and include support for this as well.

The important role teachers play can also not be overlooked. Not only do they transmit knowledge to the future generation, but they also are directly involved in the shaping of characters, inspiring new ideas and act as surrogate parents in many instances.   

Create a summary statement that is essentially a rephrasing of your topic sentence. Begin this with therefore, thus, or consequently.

Therefore, these roles, the seriousness of which cannot be overstated, establish teachers and doctors as key figures in our society, and they should be reimbursed accordingly.

Task Response

Essays that score well on task response answer the question directly and develop the topic fully. A Band 9 answer leaves no further questions for the reader.

Make sure you don’t over-generalize. Without the words in bold below, the sentence is an overgeneralization.  

While there are clearly professions that perform greater services to society than singers and footballers, these typically/ often/ usually/ frequently do not earn a great deal of money for their employers.   

Example: Doubtless doctors and teachers deserve to earn a great deal of money for the services they provide.  Doctors save lives on a daily basis and take on a great responsibility in caring for their patients and their health.  Furthermore, they have undertaken years of arduous study to pursue their profession and commit to lifelong learning in order to stay up to date on therapies and developments in the field. The important role teachers play can also not be overlooked. Not only do they transmit knowledge to the future generation but they also are directly involved in the shaping of characters, inspiring new ideas and act as surrogate parents in many instances. These roles, the seriousness of which cannot be overstated, establish teachers and doctors as key figures in our society, and they should be reimbursed accordingly.

Cohesion

Do not use too many front-position linkers.  These are words like Firstly, Furthermore, Moreover, For example.  Try to create cohesion with pronouns, synonyms or ellipsis

Example:  These roles, the seriousness of which cannot be overstated, establish teachers and doctors as key figures in our society, and they should be reimbursed accordingly.

If you partially agree, make sure the transition between the two body paragraphs is appropriate.  Use:

However

Although the above arguments are valid, on the whole it is also true that…

Having said this, (followed by contrasting statement introducing new paragraph)

That said,

Example:  Having said this, it must also be said that the above viewpoints regarding salaries are utopian.  

If you arguing one side of the argument only, you can use linkers like Furthermore, Additionally (provided you use these sparingly).

Lexical Resource

Use language that is natural but avoid using elementary English like “big, small, good, bad, or nice.”

While topic vocabulary is appreciated, points are scored for the surrounding language you use, like less common collocations.

Great responsibility

Years of arduous study

Commit to lifelong learning

Pursue their profession

Perform services

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

Make sure your basic grammar is accurate:  tenses, subject-verb agreement, articles, prepositions

Practice using higher level grammar: Not only do they transmit knowledge to the future generation but they also are directly involved in the shaping of characters, inspiring new ideas and act as surrogate parents in many instances.   

Conclusion

Keep it brief – 2 sentences should be enough

Start by restating your position. Leave your reader with a general, thought-provoking statement

Example:  

While ideologically it seems fair that doctors, teachers and other professions that save and shape lives should make more money than those who sing or kick around a ball, the reality of the situation is more complex. Perhaps we should all simply strive to do the best work we can and not concern ourselves with the incomes of others.  

Audio tutorial

You can download or listen to the audio version here:

|Direct Download Here | Stitcher | iTunes | Spotify | Soundcloud | Transcript |

Subscribe: Android | RSS