Remember the annoying ‘discuss’ type questions from school? School uniforms should be banned – discuss. Remember staring at a blank page for hours, not knowing how to start, until you eventually just copy out a definition from the dictionary? Well, ‘discuss’ essays are alive and well and thriving in the world of the English language exam.
The problem in the exam is that we don’t have hours to stare at the page. In the Cambridge IELTS exam we have just 40 minutes, Pearson gives you just 20 minutes! What we need is a simple guide, a recipe, that we can use to quickly plan and structure our essay without having to think.
Now, before we look at the recipe, let’s have a quick think about why structure is important.
What is the examiner looking for?
In the IELTS exam (and it’s similar in most language exams) there are four evaluation categories. These have special terms but they basically refer to four areas:
How well you answer the question
How well you structure your answer
Your use of vocabulary
Your use of grammar
So 50% of the grade is not directly related to your language skills. You could have the vocabulary of Shakespeare and the Grammar skills of Agricola, but if your structure is awful and you don’t answer the question, you’ll lose half your points.
So, for now, forget 'advanced grammar and vocabulary', and let’s look at the three step recipe to 'discuss' questions.
Let's begin
Step 1. Turn your question into a yes / no question. That is, a question that can only be answered Yes or No.
E.g.,
School uniforms should be banned - discuss
= Should school uniforms be banned?
English Exams are a waste of time – discuss
= Are English exams a waste of time?
The important thing is that the possible answers are divided clearly in two. Usually this can be done by using Is, Are, Do, Does Should, Can or other auxiliary verbs.
Sometimes the question is a bit more complicated:
It is commonly believed that nowadays the main factors that affect a child's development are media, pop culture and friends. A different point of view is that family plays the most significant role. - discuss
But we can do the same here:
= Do media, pop, culture and friends play a more important role than family in a child’s development?
There are variations to this technique. For example, you could rephrase this same question as:
= Which is more important for a child’s development. Media, pop and culture or family? This doesn’t give us a yes / no answer, but it does divide the answer neatly into two, and this is important (as you will see later).
Step 2. Think of some examples to demonstrate the answers in the yes/no question.
e.g., Should school uniforms be banned?
Yes.
- Because they are an extra cost to families
- Because they are old fashioned and have no place in the modern classroom
- Because they don’t respect freedom to choose gender identity
No.
- Because they are a smart image of the school
- Because they create equality in the classroom
- Because they are traditional
I personally recommend students to get 2-3 examples for both Yes and No. Try to keep the arguments simple. Don’t over-complicate this – you are not being evaluated on your intelligence.
Now we have the ingredients of the essay. It’s time to put it together.
Step 3. Build a Four-Paragraph essay.
Four paragraphs is usually all you need for this type of essay question, and here's how I would use them:
Paragraph 1 – Introduction.
I’ll deal with this in more depth later in another blog post, but here are the main ingredients.
a. Introduce the theme of the essay (school uniforms)
b. Present the question. E.g., Nowadays, many schools have school uniforms which are still obligatory to wear. Typically, these might include a shirt, trousers and tie for boys and a blouse and skirt for girls. Many people are beginning to ask if this is still necessary or even if uniforms at school should be banned.
Paragraph 2 – The 'Yes' part of your yes/no questions.
e.g., Yes.
- Because they are an extra cost to families
- Because they are old fashioned and have no place in the modern classroom¨
- Because they don’t respect freedom to choose gender identity
Paragraph 3 – The 'No' part of your yes/no questions
e.g., No.
- Because they are a smart image of the school
- Because they create equality in the classroom
- Because they are traditional
Paragraph 4 – Conclusion
Again, I’ll have a separate blog post on this at some point in the future, but basically you should write a summary of the above arguments (in one or two sentences) and your personal conclusion.
And that’s it.
Once you have the above plan, you just need to write everything out. Like following the steps of a recipe.
The trick to this is to practice forming the yes / no questions and thinking up possible examples to demonstrate your reasoning.
And please, keep it simple. Over-complicated ideas and essays give the examiner a headache and that won’t help you.
If you're interested in improving your English, get in touch. I'm happy to have an online chat, free of charge, and discuss how I can help.
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