IELTS 1477: How to Give Supporting Details in Task 2
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This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1477, How to Give Supporting Details in Task 2.

Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English, downloaded more than 22 million times with former IELTS examiner Jessica Beck and Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz. If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams. Get your estimated band score now with our two-minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com

forward slash my score. You likely know that you have to provide supporting details and examples for every idea in your task two essays. But what is the best way to do this? Today we'll show you how and provide a brainstorm for a difficult IELTS task two essay.

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but it expires on April 20th at midnight. So, don't miss your chance. Go right now to allearsenglish.com/professional. That's allearsenglish.com/professional. Hello, Aubrey. How are you doing today? I'm great, Jessica. How are you? I'm great. I'm excited to talk about writing task two.

Yes, and we have a really interesting essay that we are going to brainstorm with you. So this is going to be fun today. Yes, we got an amazing student question, and we're going to share with you some resources that you can use on our YouTube channel or just scrolling up on this podcast feed for more Task 2 advice. So let's take this step by step here. Aubrey, can you read the student question?

Yes, the question is, how can I give supporting details in a task to essay? I love that the student is thinking about this, first of all, because I've seen far too many essays that are full of good ideas with no supporting details. So already the student recognizes the vital need to support your ideas.

Yes, and that is the question we will be focusing on today, guys. We're going to give you two strategies for coming up with supported details, and then we'll give you an example, of course, related to a current IELTS Task 2 question. But this student had two more questions as well. They asked, how can I form effective complex sentences? So, guys, scroll way up or go to our YouTube channel and search IELTS Energy IELTS.

1177, three IELTS band nine sentence structures. So there are three grammar structures in there that are all complex that you can learn the format for those structures and practice. Yes. And then they also asked, can you give me some tips on brainstorming? And though we are going to do a sample brainstorm for you today,

You can also find in episode 1277 on YouTube or scroll up three steps to answer impossible task two questions with some more brainstorming tips. And we were just delighted when we were looking for these resources.

to realize that today's episode is 1477 and both of these episodes end in 1777. So fun. So weird. So weird. This is fated. This is fortuitous. This is written in the stars, today's episode. So thank you, Kal Pash, for sending these messages.

questions. Let's talk first of all about just two possible ways to come up with details because we know guys, we work with a lot of IELTS students and we know that this is one of the most difficult things to master for writing task two, but you have to include specific supporting details in order to get a seven or higher. You have to.

Exactly. So our first bit of advice is to think of real people, real places and real times. So instead of thinking of either something you could make up or something's really vague, think about people you know that have been affected by this topic or you yourself. Is it at all related to you? It's going to be easier to come up with real strong support for an idea that you can relate to.

Exactly. And the more specific, the better, right? The more specific you are in your details, the higher your task score is going to be because you're linking this opinion to real things in the real world. So that's the strongest type of support.

So for example, today's task two question we'll talk about in just a minute is about married couples choosing not to have children. So think of real people you know, think of real places where this is common. Usually in like bigger cities, you'll see more of this, for example, real times.

Now, present day, this is a lot more common than in the past, right? So employing these three techniques, real people, real places, real times, it does get your brain moving in a lot of useful directions for coming up with great details.

Yes. And our second tip is to think about answers to all of those question words. Who, what, when, where, how. As you think about the specific support, if you kind of get stuck, like, well, what can I say about that? Ask yourself, okay, what about this is interesting? Who is it about? When? What of those supporting details will defend your idea to the examiner to make them see that it's valid, that it's important?

Exactly, exactly. And by the way, these two strategies for coming up with specific details and examples, this is also vital for speaking, right?

Yes, exactly. When you are asked questions on the IELTS speaking exam, you also have to give supporting details. You can't just answer in three words and stop, right? You have to provide more detail, more examples, so you can, again, answer those question words, think about real people, real places to make it easier to provide lots of interesting details. Exactly.

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All right, Aubrey, can you read today's task two question, please? Yes. There is an increasing trend around the world of married couples deciding not to have children. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for couples who decide to do this. Already right off the bat, you can see that this will be one of the trickier essays because there are these plurals. You have to have at least two advantages and two disadvantages to satisfy that task.

Exactly. So keep the topic sentences in those two paragraphs. You can keep them kind of general if your two advantages don't have anything to do with each other, right? Right. So if you can't think of two advantages that are related, but they have

to be in the same paragraph. Just use a topic sentence like, "Firstly, let's examine the advantages to this situation." And then you could give your two advantages, whatever those are. But your essay will be higher scoring if the two advantages do have something in common. And then the main idea of the paragraph and that topic sentence will be a little bit more specific.

Yes, that makes sense, right? If they can be related so that your supporting details actually justify both ideas, right? They're providing support. It makes the entire paragraph just more cohesive. So for example, in this case,

Our brainstorm, the first advantage is having more income, right? That's obvious. You're going to have more money if you don't have a lot of kids. And then the second advantage is it's easier to travel. I think those are connected.

Absolutely, because part of the reason it's easier to travel is you have that discretionary income to spend on travel. So though you can also talk about the ease of travel and the more flexibility in time with not having kids' schedules, it's also they're both about income. So those supporting details will defend both of these ideas. Yes, exactly. Or you could just say like more resources available, right? And you could say that as the main idea. Awesome.

Okay, so let's talk about what specific details we could use for these advantages. So that first advantage, having more discretionary income, what's something specific you could say to support that?

Yeah, I immediately just would follow the strategy we told you guys to think about real people, real places. And I would use myself, right? I could say as an illustration, as a mother of four children, my expenditures on groceries and extracurricular activities prohibit me from a life of luxury and fine dining. Yeah.

So good. There's so much great vocabulary there, you guys. And I want you to notice that, yeah, that is a personal example. That's the first thing that come to mind often. But the way that you talk about it is high level. The vocabulary in there is amazing. The grammar structure is complex.

So everything about that is formal and academic, even though it's a personal example. All right. I couldn't write like I've got kids, so I can't. So I have no money to eat out. Right. I'm saying the same thing, really, but in a much more impressive, higher level way.

Totally, totally. All right. So let's look at this second advantage, easier to travel. So we've used that of the real people thing. Is there another type of support we could use to get details about it being easier to travel?

Yeah, you could talk about expense and inconvenience. You know, as anyone who has children, it's more about the convenience, the flexibility of schedules. So you could provide details about that.

Yeah, totally. And if we try to put like a real place in there as a supporting example, we could say, like, take, for example, you know, big bustling cities like New York, I think it's much easier to travel around and enjoy everything the city has to offer. If you're only two adults, and you don't have to worry about keeping track of a toddler. Yes, absolutely. Right. And if you're sticking closer to the funds,

You could mention that you likely will have to book two separate hotel rooms if you have multiple children, something like that, that makes it very cost prohibitive. Even though we are both mothers, we can totally think of a lot of advantages to also not having kids. But that doesn't mean we can't think of just as many or more advantages to having kids, right?

Absolutely. But it is, oh man, it's just such a great strategy to immediately think about real people. If you don't have kids or haven't thought about this yourself, you know people who do, you know people who are able to travel because they don't have kids. So that's who you could write about. You know, we sort of took the route of talking about what we're not able to do because we have children, but I could just have, because I

just as easily have talked about a couple I know who don't have children, who have this amazing high-rise downtown, who travel all the time. And that would be another interesting way to go about it.

Yeah, definitely. All right, guys. So if you want a more complete system of strategies to not only tackle writing but all parts of the exam, check out Three Keys IELTS. It's our online course available now. Go to allearsenglish.com/keys. Awesome. Thanks, Jessica. I will see you next time. All right, Aubrey. Thanks. Have a good date. You too. Bye.

Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy. Hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish.com slash myscore.