IELTS Tips: Advantage and Disadvantage Essays
If you have been preparing for the IELTS writing exam, you might know that there are different types of essays that IELTS may ask you to write for Task 2. One of these essay types is the Advantage/Disadvantage essay. Today let’s take a closer look at how to answer this kind of question.
What kind of advantage/disadvantage essay?
Even within one “type” of essay question, there are differences you should pay attention to. Look at the three advantage/disadvantage essay questions below. Can you spot the differences?
1) Many people today prefer to watch film or TV shows alone at home instead of watching with other people.
What are the disadvantages and advantages of this development?
2) School children are using computers in school more than ever.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this and give your own opinion.
3) In the past, knowledge was contained in books. Nowadays, knowledge is uploaded to the internet.
Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
Did I ask for your opinion?
The first thing we might notice is the difference between number 1 and number 2. While the first writing prompt asks us to simply discuss the advantages and disadvantages, the second prompt also asks for our opinion.
This is important to note because the decision to include your own opinion on the topic or not will affect the Task Achievement aspect of your IELTS writing score, which makes up 25% of your total. Before you decide to write about your personal views, double check if the question has actually asked you to.
If indeed the question is asking for your opinion, try using a phrase like these to incorporate it into your response:
· As far as I’m concerned…
· Personally, I believe…
· In my opinion…
· From my perspective…
· In my view…
What does “outweigh” mean?
The third writing prompt is more obviously different from the others. You may have noticed the word “outweigh.” What does this mean? Well, think of scales that measure the weight of objects. When you place something heavy on one side, the scales tip towards the heavy object.
In an outweigh essay, think of the advantages and disadvantages as the two sides of the scales. Your purpose in answering this prompt, is not to simply discuss the two sides, but to say which side is heavier.
This means that instead of presenting your arguments in a neutral way, you should try to make them more or less convincing. Let’s look at an example:
In a regular advantage/disadvantage essay, I might present the two sides neutrally.
“One advantage to watching movies at home is the privacy we can enjoy.”
“A notable disadvantage to watching movies at home is that our TV and speakers at home are not as powerful as the ones at the theatre.”
However, in an OUTWEIGH style essay, the arguments should not be neutral. Instead, try to convince the reader that the side you picked is very important and the side you did not pick is unimportant.
“One incredible advantage of keeping our knowledge on the internet is the free and unrestricted access that it provides to the knowledge-hungry people of the world.”
“A possible disadvantage of this situation is that the internet could be wiped of knowledge by some computer virus, but this is a highly unlikely scenario.”
Do you see how these sentences make the advantages sound very important and the disadvantages sound like no big deal? That is the purpose of an “outweigh” style essay.
How would you answer the example essay questions from above? Try writing down a few main ideas for each prompt and organizing them into paragraphs.
Thanks for reading and good luck with your studies!
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