This post on IELTS Writing: 3 ways to imbalance advantages and disadvantages follows on from our last post about problems that students have with advantages / disadvantages essays. Here, we give a bit more detail on how to make it very clear whether you think the advantages or disadvantages are greater.
If you haven’t already read it, check out this post about advantages / disadvantages essays. You will need to understand paragraphing to use the second and third ways to imbalance your advantages and disadvantages essay!
1. A clear imbalance
Often, you don’t have to do anything clever with your paragraph structure or arguments to show an imbalance. Instead, you just need to make it very clear that one thing is more important than the other. This may require a bit of explanation in your essay, or a use of English that shows one thing is less important. We would recommend using vocabulary to make one argument stronger than another, because it’s faster. You don’t want to have to add paragraphs giving detailed comparisons about whether the advantages of a situation outweigh the disadvantages unless you actually have to!
In the first of our model essays about international tourism (link at the end of this post), for example, we say that environmental problems are more important than economic benefits. To emphasise this, we say ‘tourism has irreparable environmental consequences, and these are more important than short-term economic gains’. The language used very clearly weakens the importance of the economy at the same time as strengthening the importance of the environment. This is because we tell the reader environmental damage cannot be repaired, while the economic benefits do not last for a long time. We could write whole paragraphs explaining the fact that environmental damage could ruin the tourist industry, or arguments about the importance of preserving the world for future generations, but we probably don’t have time!
It also doesn’t matter if the statement above is actually true. You could probably write a whole PhD on the topic and still not reach a clear conclusion that everyone agrees on, but we’re not trying to do that. For our purposes, we are trying to make a clear argument showing an opinion. The statement about the environment and the economy and their relative importance does that quite nicely!
2. Weaken the disadvantages
The second thing to look at in IELTS writing and reducing balance in your advantages/ disadvantages essays is how to weaken the disadvantages. This is actually probably a bit easier than the other two methods. There are two ways to do this.
Firstly, you can directly weaken the disadvantage. For example, in our second model essay about international tourism (link below), the writer points out the environmental damage of building tourist resorts. They then go on to say that the areas affected are usually quite small. This allows them to conclude that although it is a problem, it is not very serious.
You can also present a disadvantage as a problem that can be solved. In our model example, the writer does this twice. Firstly, they say that money from tourism can be used to fund nature reserves. This offers a clear solution to the problem of small areas of land being developed. The writer goes on to say that international companies can affect local culture. To reduce this impact, the writer suggests that governments should use planning regulations. This means that in your conclusion, you can say that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, because simple steps can be taken to reduce the overall impact of any drawbacks.
When you do this, you need to be really careful. This is not a causes and solutions essay, and it shouldn’t read like one.
3. Weakening the advantages
This method is slightly harder than the other two, because your understanding of paragraphing needs to be better. We want to paragraph based around a clear central topic and not just a very general paragraph about advantages / disadvantages. Because we build the paragraph around a topic you can add ideas into the main advantages paragraph that weaken the argument.
For example, in model essay number 3 on international tourism, the body paragraph discussing advantages centres around the economy. The essay points out that although tourism has economic benefits like job creation and improving incomes, it also increases living costs for residents. This introduces an economic drawback of tourism, weakening the whole argument about the economy as an advantage. The writer can then conclude that this economic drawback, alongside their other disadvantages, outweighs job creation.
So that is the end of this post on IELTS Writing: 3 ways to imbalance advantages and disadvantages. If you found this post helpful, be sure to share it with other people who you know preparing for their tests! For our model answers referred to in this post, check out the question and model answers here.
Which of these techniques will you use in your next IELTS test? Leave us a comment and let us know! Thanks for joining us for this article, and best of luck with your test preparation. We hope to see you again soon!
