IELTS Essays: Giving your opinion.
Updated: April 29th 2021
There is some confusion among IELTS students about when you have to give an opinion in an essay and when not to give an opinion. If you are asked for a direct opinion and you don’t write it you could lose marks, so it is very important to understand when your direct opinion needs to be included.
Actually, all IELTS essays ask for your position. Some directly ask an opinion but others may ask something like: ‘What are the problems and what solutions can you suggest?’ this is actually asking for your position on the issue or suggestions for solutions.
What does the marking criteria say?
The marking criteria for Band 7 task response says: ‘ …presents a clear position throughout the response’ The word ‘position’ means your opinion, your view, recommendations on how to solve the issue if it’s a problem solution essay, the advantage and disadvantage, or how you feel about the issue.
Analysing the question.
First of all you need to analyse the question carefully, see a lesson here on this. You must then recognise the ‘call to action words’ or the ‘instruction words’ as they are sometimes called. This tells you exactly what kind of essay it will be and if it requires a direct opinion. Here is an example of call to action words which ask for your direct opinion:
‘To what extent do you agree or disagree?’
Key Point: If the task question asks for a direct opinion you must state it in the introduction, the main body and the conclusion, just writing it in the conclusion is not enough, you may lose marks in task response if your opinion is not throughout the whole essay and supported. As the marking criteria states: ‘ …presents a clear position throughout the response’
Don’t give a direct opinion in the following, however, you must state a position.
- ‘Discuss both views’ (these are quite rare)
- ‘What are the causes and what are some possible solutions’
- ‘What are the reasons for this and how can it be tackled?’
- ‘What are the advantages and disadvantages of this trend?’
Problem-Solution essays: Here you need to clearly outline the problems or causes of the problems, and then suggest solutions to problems. For instance:
- “Many young children have unsupervised access to the Internet and are using the Internet to socialize with others. This can lead to a number of dangerous situations which can be threatening for children. What problems do children face when going online without parental supervision? How can these problems be solved?“
Advantage Disadvantage Essays: Here you will need to state advantages and outline disadvantages. Although you are not giving a direct opinion, you are actually stating a position of what you think of the question.
If the task asks ‘Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?’ then you must state your opinion on which is stronger.
Discussion essays: The ‘Discuss both views’ question is not asking for your opinion so you don’t need it. However, discussion essays nearly always ask ‘Discuss both views and give your own opinion’
Two-part questions or direct question essays : These are pretty straightforward, you just need to answer the two questions with examples and state your position. Here is an example of a two-part question where the first question asks your position and the second question asks for your direct opinion.
- What factors contribute to job satisfaction? How realistic is the expectation of job satisfaction for all workers?
In this question you need to outline the factors that contribute to job satisfaction and state if this is realistic or not, basically, you are just answering the first question with your position and the second question with your direct opinion.
Here is a Two-Part question that does ask for a direct opinion:
- Most people agree that money cannot buy happiness. Why is happiness difficult to define? How can people achieve happiness?
You must give a direct opinion if you see the following in the instruction words.
- ‘…..do you think…?’
- ‘ ….in your opinion…?’
- ‘ ….in your view..?
- ‘To what extent do you agree or disagree?’
- ‘Give your opinion’
- ‘Discuss both views and give your own opinion’
- ‘Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?’ (outweigh is a keyword here, this essay asks for your opinion)
- ‘Has this development brought more advantages or disadvantages?’
- ‘Is this a positive development?’
- ‘How ….’ or ‘Why…’ questions. (eg: How realistic is the expectation of job satisfaction for all workers?)
Notice how some questions use the word you or your, it is clear that a direct opinion is asked for here.
Let’s see some examples.
Advantages Disadvantages essay
There are many jobs at home which used to be done by hand but are now done by machines. Has this development brought more advantages or disadvantages?
Introduction of the essay: (paraphrased with thesis statement)
Many years ago, domestic chores that were once done manually are now carried out by machines. This essay agrees that this development has more advantages than downsides because people do not have time to do housework and machines are more efficient at doing household tasks than by hand.
You can see here that I have given an opinion in the thesis statement in green, because the question asks ‘Has this development…?’ . It is not using the word ‘you’, or ‘in your opinion…’ but it still asks for an opinion, in fact, it is very similar to an ‘outweigh’ question where both the advantages and disadvantages must be explained and I have to clearly state my view.
Discussion essay
Some people think that the best way to reduce crime is to give longer prison sentences. Others, however, believe there are better alternative ways of reducing crime. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
Introduction of the essay: (paraphrased with thesis statement)
There are some who believe that the most effective way to bring crime rates down is longer jail time for criminals. Others feel that there are better ways to decrease crime. I think that longer prison terms are not practical because even if sentences are prolonged crime rates will not decrease.
Here I have given a direct opinion in the thesis statement in green using ‘ I think..’ So I need to write about what some people think in main body one and what other people think in main body two. I must also state my opinion with the side I agree with.
If I have a specific opinion I could write about that in the 3rd body paragraph. However, I advise the 2 main body paragraph approach as it is easier.
Two part question essay
Most people agree that money cannot buy happiness. Why is happiness difficult to define? How can people achieve happiness?
Introduction of the essay: (paraphrased with thesis statement)
Many people agree with the idea that happiness cannot be bought. Happiness is difficult to define because everyone has a different concept of it. In my view, people can become happier by changing their mindset, spending time in nature and working on themselves more.
Here I gave a direct opinion for the second ‘How’ question but I could also state a direct opinion for the first ‘why’ question too if I restructured the sentences.
‘ Outweigh’ advantage disadvantage essay
Here are two questions that are the same, but which one do you think is asking for an opinion?
1. More and more students are choosing to study at colleges and universities in foreign countries. Do the advantages of studying abroad outweigh the disadvantages?
2. More and more students are choosing to study at colleges and universities in foreign countries. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this trend?
To summarise.
All IELTS essays are asking for a position, so check the instruction words first as in some cases they ask for your direct opinion. If the question asks you or your then it is asking clearly for your direct opinion. You can state your direct opinion simply using these phrases below,
- I think…
- This essay agrees / disagrees…
- In my view,
- In my opinion,
- I believe…
- I hold the view that…
- I agree because… / I disagree with this view because…
Do not use informal or passive phrases to state an opinion in writing task 2 such as:
- I reckon…
- It seems that… (passive)
- It appears that…(passive)
- I’d say ……
- As far as I’m concerned…
- To be honest, I reckon…
- If you ask me, I think…
These are fine to use in the IELTS speaking test as that is not formal, just avoid them in the essay writing section.
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