Preparing yourself for IELTS Opinion Essay writing is as important as preparing yourself for a visa interview. This section of the IELTS exam is important to the success of the exam for students. Many students fail because they don’t know how to write an opinion essay or its importance to their academic pursuit. Therefore, it becomes important to state the necessity of the IELTS opinion essay and prepare for that aspect of the exam.
Ask yourself the following questions to ensure the things you need to do when in an exam situation. You must give your opinion in an exam when asked to have a good score. Sometimes, if you want to go for both sides of the argument (allowed in IELTS exams), state your points clearly.
- What is an opinion question?
- How do I answer an opinion question?
- Find a central idea that pushes your writing towards success. Subject the idea to different tests to determine the perspective you want to discuss.
- Organize your thoughts into ideas by creating a mental picture of your thoughts
- Know how to use qualitative research in your essay writing
- Know the rules of writing.
We shall look at these 6 key points listed above to explain how students can prepare for the IELTS opinion essay.
What is an Opinion Essay?
An opinion essay is a piece of writing designed to help students build their intuitive knowledge. Students either have to agree or disagree by stating their arguments and supportive points side by side.
With IELTS exams, it is an avenue for the examiner to test your language strength. The examiner looks for construction, word usage, logic, and point relevance. The combination of your performance in these areas contributes to the success of your essay paper writing.
How do I answer an Opinion Essay question?
Answering an opinion essay question requires special attention. Try as much as possible to understand the question to know what is expected of you to write on. Most opinion questions are perspective-based questions that are structured to help you decide on which side you want to focus your argument on. Focusing your argument on a particular side helps you to achieve clarity. Without clarity, an opinion essay will lack any meaning. To find arguments you could also search for quantitative studies to empower your position.
Finding a Central Idea
In an opinion essay, the central idea plays an important role in developing a good argument. Many people choose their perspective based on the number of evidence available to back up their arguments. The central idea is important to build a thesis statement for your essay. It is also important to understand the things you need to do in the essay.
Subject the idea to different tests to determine the perspective you want to discuss. Doing this will help you justify why you need to favor one perspective over the other. The central idea of your perspective has to reflect in the introductory paragraph of the essay so that people can know your opinion from the start.
Organize thoughts into ideas
Whatever you think, be sure to visualize the ideas and convince yourself that you are writing a justifiable point. Each point is needed to clarify your statement and build a strong case for your argument. Therefore, use simple and clear languages that assert your knowledge about the topic you are trying to discuss.
Another important thing to note in this regard is the need to be fast. Because you are in an exam situation, the chance to jot things down may not arise. Visualizing your thoughts before you start writing helps you get a direction for your thoughts.
Your introduction should match your conclusion to achieve a level of uniformity. Consistency is key to achieving great writing results.
Know how to use qualitative research
You need evidence to build your point in an IELTS opinion essay. Due to time constraints, you may not be able to collect your points online or from other sources. It is good to use relatable events and evidence to back up your arguments. Each argument is important to the success of your essay. You have to construct each argument effectively to get a synergy between your points to achieve the overall aim of the writing.
Know the Rules of Writing
The writing rules require you to pay adequate attention to each aspect of writing. Consider the importance of capitalization, syntax, word usage, punctuation, and sentence formation to your writing. The combination of all these features helps you get a clear content delivery and edge you closer to the objective of your writing.
Grammar
Staying true to grammar rules helps your writing achieve clarity. If you miss any grammar rule, your essay fails to generate the intended meaning. A missed punctuation and wrong word placement disqualifies the objective of your essay, thus contributing to inconsistency in the points and arguments.
This is one problem that is particularly associated with second language users of English. Failing to capture your words and meaning correctly will lead to errors in the delivery.
After satisfying these six questions, it is time to prepare yourself for the IELTS opinion exam. Candidates can go over past questions to see how opinion questions are asked to help them prepare for the exam. Practice prepares students for different thematic discourses around which questions can be developed for the exam. The chances of recurring themes are high. Students, therefore, have to study rigorously to prepare for any question at all.
Overall, writing can be fun, but in exam situations, knowing what to write becomes hard. According to a business expert at Studybay, Max Malack, the problem arises due to many factors, but we’ll focus on the time and unpredictability of exams. The combination of these two factors contributes to the determinants of success in IELTS opinion essay writing. Preparing ahead of time will help students scale through the problems associated with exams.
Summarily, students have to concentrate on the areas of:
- Research
- Improvement on the construction of English
- Observation of grammatical rule
- Learn to organize points
- Present points coherently and cohesively to enhance clarity and meaning
- Learn to justify their arguments.
In any case, the best way to learn to write this type of essay correctly is to practice as much as possible. Do not forget the famous words of Albert Einstein: “The only source of knowledge is experience”.
