IELTS Writing: Why advantages versus disadvantages is harder than you think

Why do students think this is an easy question type?

One the face of it, this task 2 type seems easy. When students, read it, they think it is very clear what they need to discuss and the structure seems obvious. Now, all they need to worry about is finding some ideas for each side of the discussion, decide whether they think the advantages or disadvantages are more specific, and write the essay.

Answering the question

There are several problems that students face with advantages and disadvantages tasks. The first is that they treat it like the other IELTS essay types and choose one very specific idea for each side, which they develop. The problem here is that the task asks for advantages (plural!) and disadvantages (also plural!). By only picking one advantage and one disadvantage, they’re not really answering the question fully (which is required for band 7 in task achievement).

There are a couple of ways to do this. The way that we definitely do NOT recommend is picking 2 or 3 advantages and 2 or 3 disadvantages, and then writing a body paragraph for each. You simply don’t have time to do this. What you can try to do instead is use several different advantages and disadvantages as supporting points in a bigger paragraph. When you do this, make it really clear by directly saying ‘these issues / these drawbacks / these advantages / these benefits etc.’ in the closing line of the paragraph. Then, it’s really clear that you’re talking about more than one!

Listing vs idea development

The next problem in IELTS writing that makes advantages versus disadvantages harder than you think is that students may not properly develop ideas. This happens when they just write a list of advantages and a list of disadvantages, with no expansion or explanation. For example:

“There are many disadvantages of children playing video games. Firstly, modern video games are quite violent, which is not good. Secondly, rather than doing schoolwork, children may spend all of their time focused on video games. Finally, if children become addicted to video games, they may not spend enough time with their families. Clearly, too much time playing computer games is detrimental to a child’s development and relationships.”

 In the paragraph above, none of the ideas have been properly explained or developed. The reader has to guess about why these things are disadvantages. Add another layer of development to make it clearer:

“There are many disadvantages of children playing video games. Firstly, modern video games are quite violent, which is not good because the behaviour of children is easily influenced. As a result, they may copy the behaviour of characters in games, and become more aggressive. Secondly, rather than doing schoolwork, children may spend all of their time focused on video games. This would lead to a drop in school grades, and possibly even hamper their future opportunities and career development. Finally, if children become addicted to these games, they may not spend enough time with their families. Such isolation can lead to mental health issues like depression, and weaker family relationships. Clearly, too much time playing computer games is detrimental to a child’s development and relationships.”

Wow! At 125 words, that’s quite a long paragraph! You could obviously write less, but you still need to make sure that you are properly developing your ideas, not just listing them.

Giving a clear, central topic for the paragraph

In coherence and cohesion, to achieve band 7, each paragraph needs to have a clear central topic. This can be really difficult in advantages versus disadvantages essay. The issue is that while advantages is obviously a topic, it is very broad. If your advantages are all very different, it can seem badly paragraphed and less coherent. To do this, make sure you identify a clear theme that links together all of the advantages and disadvantages that you will discuss. In the previous example about video games, this could be done simply by switching the first and last sentences of the paragraph. Rewording the last sentence slightly also makes it clear that the paragraph is about development:

“Spending too much time playing computer games is detrimental to a child’s development, both mentally and socially. Firstly, modern video games…
… weaker family relationships. Clearly, there are many disadvantages because of the negative impact video games have on a child’s development.”

Writing clear conclusions

The final thing that we will look at is achieving imbalance. It is really important for task achievement that your conclusions are clear and why you are making them. The problem here is that students often write really balanced essays. When they do this, they’re not really sure whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages based on their arguments. This shows when they write their conclusion, and no amount of saying ‘Clearly, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks’ is going to convince the reader if it isn’t really clear why the benefits outweigh the drawbacks!

Achieving imbalance can be done is several ways, but it is a fairly complex topic and deserves an article of its own. Look at the link below, where we analyse how to throw the balance out of your essay to give you a really clear, solid conclusion in advantages and disadvantages essays.