Name: Academic IELTS Writing Task 2 Understanding and Planning Part 2 - Essay Example and Structure
Uploaded: 2025-06-19T17:14:00.000Z
Duration: 22 min 44 s
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Hi, welcome to AE Helps IELTS test preparation videos.

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Okay, in this video, we're going to continue from part one of understanding and planning for task two, writing of the academic IELTS.

And for this, we're going to continue using, of course, the example question that we started with in the understanding and planning.

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Universities should take the same number of men and women in each major.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Okay, so we are going to begin with the introduction paragraph, or the introductory paragraph, of course.

Okay, so this is the introductory paragraph.

And, of course, the first part of the introductory paragraph is the hook.

Remember that the hook is a simple but interesting statement that's related to the topic and controlling idea of the question.

Sometimes you might hear that it's a question, like, should universities accept equal numbers of men and women in each major?

I don't think it's a good idea to do that.

The goal of an essay is to answer a question, not to ask a question.

Usually it's a better idea to avoid questions in an essay, especially, I think, as a hook.

Instead, try to create a statement that makes the reader go, huh, or wow, or really, or hmm, that's interesting, or oh, is that so, or yeah, I've heard that before.

So that kind of a response will get your reader interested.

You should have that response to your own hook, and then your reader will have the same response.

A good way to know is if the hook doesn't make it interesting for you, it probably won't make it interesting for your reader either.

So again, create a hook that makes you go, huh, or wow.

All right, so we're dealing with universities here.

Visualize, imagine what does it mean to be a university?

What would society be without universities?

And these kinds of ideas and questions will help you to come up with a good hook, something like this.

It's a rule of the structure that you need a five-space indent, and then begin with your hook.

Of course, don't write this during the exam.

So universities are the source of cultural evolution for society.

Notice it's not a complex or not a compound sentence.

I don't suggest using long, complex, compound sentences for your hook.

Because if you make a mistake in your hook, it's a really bad first impression.

So keep it simple, keep it interesting, and keep it correct, okay?

Okay, then after the hook, of course, we go to the background information.

And for the background, remember that there are two smaller parts that make up the background or the context in an essay.

Firstly, you want to make sure that you explain your definition or your understanding of key terms to your reader.

So in this case, what is your understanding of what is a university, or what is your understanding of equal numbers of men and women?

And then secondly, you need to tell your reader why this topic is important.

You hooked them, you got them interested.

Now tell them why it's important to discuss this.

So these two parts should make up the background.

For the IELTS, it's okay to have one or maximum two sentences for each of these components.

All right, so first of all, let's go with some definitions.

The institution of university is responsible for advancing generations through higher-level education and higher-level education.

And then again, remember, let's not go off track here, so we need to stay on path with the controlling idea and the questions specifically.

So let's get back to this equal number of men and women.

Some individuals believe that universities should encourage equality between men and women.

And this is among men and women, by accepting equal numbers into every class of men and women.

And this is among men and women, by accepting equal numbers into every subject.

So again, we're using the information from the part one of the planning stage of this essay.

Okay, so we have the hook, we have the background.

Now the final part of the introduction is the thesis statement.

And of course, we're just simply going to write the thesis statement at the end here that we were able to generate from the planning.

So that's the last part of the introductory paragraph, and then we can go on to the body paragraph.

Although gender equality is important, I believe that gender universities should admit students into each major, and I'm going to use the word major here, according to their grades and interests.

All right, so this is our thesis statement.

And, notice that there are two points that are clearly distinct.

This is very important in your thesis to have two clearly separate points, grades and interests.

And also notice that they're parallel forms, so they're both nouns.

And they're not preceded by adjectives, they're not phrases or anything like that, so it's the same grammar form for each point.

Okay, now that we have our introductory paragraph and a good, strong thesis, we can develop the body paragraphs using these two points.

So, let's continue on with the body paragraph.

And, of course, again then begin with your topic sentence.

So, remember that the first sentence of a body paragraph is the topic sentence.

The topic sentence needs to include the first point of your thesis.

In our case, it's grades, which decide the admission into a major.

So, again, it's a good idea to paraphrase these words to make it just more interesting and more descriptive.

So, academic scores should be used by universities to decide which applicants are admitted into a specific major regardless of their gender.

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Academic IELTS Writing Task 2 Understanding and Planning Part 2 - Essay Example and Structure

specific

realize

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necessarily