These activities are designed to help you with the structure of Writing Task 2 essays.
Exercise
Please click the Exercise 1 link to continue.
Activity: generating ideas
Take question 2 (Some people think that governments need to do more to reduce pollution. Do you agree?).
Use a table format to record your ideas. Draw two columns, one for Agree, and one for Disagree. Write down as many arguments in each column as you can. Don’t worry that you have too many for your essay. In pairs or small groups, compare your tables and answer these questions:
- do you have similar ideas, or different?
- do you have more arguments for agree or disagree?
- has your personal view changed after seeing other people's arguments?
Activity: main ideas and supporting details
Each paragraph will have one, or maybe two, main ideas. These are general sentences which make a statement about the topic.
However, paragraphs are incomplete unless they are supported by further details which present evidence and/or examples. These supporting ideas present the reasons why the main idea is valid.
Look again at your ideas for the essay above.
- Identify the main ideas.
- Next, identify the supporting ideas.
It may help to use a mindmap, with the main idea in the centre.
Writing your opening paragraph
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