How to write a Band 9 IELTS Writing Task 2 essay sentence by sentence | Two views and your opinion

Writing an IELTS Writing Task 2 essay sentence by sentence

Introduction

We begin with a short background statement:

Health issues arising from consuming excessive amounts of junk food are a cause of great concern in many countries.

Now let’s present the two views:

There are calls for governments to either reduce prices of healthy foods through subsidies or to raise the costs of unhealthy products through taxation.

The word “foods” is in plural here because I’m talking about different kinds of food.

In my opinion, a combination of the two is the best way forward.

You don’t have to give your opinion in the introduction, but I like to do that to make my opinion extra clear and to build expectations as to what I’m going to write about in the body paragraphs.

Body paragraph 1

View one: Some people think the government should subsidise fruit and vegetables to make healthy food more affordable.

On the one hand, I agree that the tax option can help to reduce the consumption of potentially harmful foods.

The linker “on the one hand” helps me link my introduction and the first body paragraph. In this sentence I directly say that I agree.

For example, the so-called “sugar tax” imposed in the UK on soft drinks with a high sugar content has had some positive effects.

When you’re looking for ideas, you may think about something personal. In your Task 2, try to turn your personal experience into a more general example. Now, I’m going to explore the other side of my example:

However, soft drink manufacturers have reacted by reducing sugar levels to just under the amount liable for tax and, as a result, most people tend to buy this slightly healthier version without really changing their overall dietary habits that much.

Basically, I’m saying that taxing unhealthy food has some advantages, but they are limited. Now I have one more argument:

Furthermore, it could be argued that this policy represents a kind of punishment for those consumers least able to seek better alternatives for financial reasons.

“Furthermore” is a formal linking word that helps us add another idea.

I’m keeping the style of this essay formal by using the passive voice. Instead of saying “people argue”, I wrote “it could be argued”. The passive voice is more impersonal, more formal and using it helps me vary sentence structures and achieve a higher score for my grammar.

Body paragraph 2

View two: Others argue that the government should tax unhealthy food instead.

Subsidising healthy foods such as fruit and vegetables has, therefore, been proposed as a policy that would represent a reward rather than a punishment.

This sentence is closely linked to the last sentence in the previous paragraph. The linker “therefore” shows that my idea here is a logical conclusion I drew from the previous idea.

Indeed, this strategy of passing on price reductions directly to the consumer seems to have a greater impact on eating habits, and I see it as an important step towards encouraging people to eat better.

In this sentence, I presented a benefit of this policy and showed that I agree that this is important. I’m not just talking about other people; I’m expressing my own opinion.

Of course, one drawback is that persuading governments to spend money, rather than collect it through taxation, is no simple matter.

Here I’m showing that subsidising healthy food is not a perfect solution either. I’m discussing both views from all sides.

Conclusion

To conclude, I believe that the best way forward is to employ both strategies in tandem.

This is my opinion, and I present it very clearly. Now I need to summarise the main arguments from the body paragraphs that led me to this conclusion:

Imposing a tax on unhealthy foods and drinks can discourage people from buying them, and the money raised can then be used to subsidise fruit and vegetables, thus making them more attractive for consumers.

I’m not presenting new ideas, but rather showing how my previous ideas work all together to form my opinion.

Word count

The essay is 294 words, which is perfect. The essay is long enough to develop ideas, but not too long to take too much time to write.

This is just one way to write an essay on one topic.

For your IELTS Writing exam, you should learn:

• how to answer each type of task in Task 1 and Task 2
• what to write about in each part of your answers
• and more generally, what the IELTS Writing requirements are and how to meet them to get the score you need.

I’ve designed my online courses specifically to teach you all this. These courses can help you get clarity on what you need to pass your exam and how to prepare step-by-step in less time. Check out FasTrack IELTS courses.

Actually, you haven’t seen the essay in full. You can download it right here: