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IELTS® Writing Practice 1

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The Writing Task 2 of the IELTS Academic/General test requires you to write an essay in response to a point of view, argument or problem. You will be presented with a topic and will be tested on your ability to respond by giving and justifying an opinion, discussing the topic, summarizing details, outlining problems, identifying possible solutions and supporting what you write with reasons, arguments and relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

  • - Write in a formal style
  • - Write at least 250 words

Write about the following topic:

The percentage of overweight children in western society has increased by almost 20% in the last ten years. Discuss the causes and effects of this disturbing trend.

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

Word Count: 0
Write about the following topic:
The percentage of overweight children in western society has increased by almost 20% in the last ten years. Discuss the causes and effects of this disturbing trend.
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.


Word Count: 0


Transition words are highlighted in red
Topic vocabulary are highlighted in blue

Obesity among children has risen sharply over the last decade in western countries.  Such a trend is largely the result of a tendency towards convenience in society, yet its effects may be detrimental to children’s long-term mental and physical health.

The prime causes of obesity are unhealthy eating habits and an inactive lifestyle.  In recent years, there has been a surge in the consumption of convenience foods among modern families.   Busy parents with no time to cook rely on prepared meals to feed their families.  Such foods have little to no nutritional value which contributes to obesity.  In addition, children these days spend inordinate amounts of time playing video games than playing outside with friends resulting in insufficient physical activity each day.  For example, studies show that children in France exercise on average around 20 minutes per day as compared to 75 minutes 30 years ago.  

The possible effects of obesity are a range of health issues.  Regarding physical health, diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, are known to be higher in overweight children than their peers.  These put a child’s life in danger, and may further affect mental health growing up.  When children are obese, they are more likely to be bullied and ostracized by classmates because they look or behave differently.  This has been known to cause low self-esteem and depression in many, and thus shun friends in favor of time alone.

In conclusion, through poor diet choice and inactivity, obesity is a growing problem that can cause lasting damage to a child’s mental and physical development.   However, by addressing this problem while young, much can be done to aid a child in becoming a healthy functioning adult.



Essay Planning

Type: Cause and Effect

  1. What is the topic of the question?
  2. How many questions are there?
  3. How many sides do you need to consider?  

The question is about the number of overweight children increasing in the western world.

There is only one question, but both the causes and effects need to be discussed.

Plan:

  1. Analyse the question.
  2. Brainstorm a number of main points that you wish to talk about
  3. Choose which points you wish to use and think of two supporting details for each
  4. Decide on the order of your main points before writing.

Thesis

Convenience trend , long term physical, mental effects

Causes

Rise in consumption of convenience foods

  • Busy parents, no time to cook
  • Little to no nutritional value, causes obesity

Lack of exercise

  • rather play video games
  • longer hours in front of video screen
  • insufficient activity every day
  • Example – children exercise in France

Effects

Physical health issues

  • Modern diseases (diabetes, high blood pressure)
  • Life in danger, mental health issues

Mental health issues

  • Obesity causes bullying
  • More susceptible to low self-esteem, depression

Plan Practice:

Look at the main points above and write down the supporting details for each one.

Key Words Found in this practice

Get your essay scored with grammar corrections and a detailed score report.
Take a closer look at the sample writing review below.

Get a Writing Review

SAMPLE IELTS Writing Report

SAMPLE Score Summary
5.5 / 9
Task Fulfillment
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Lexical Resource (Vocabulary)
Coherence & Cohesion
SAMPLE Grammar Corrections & Feedback
Correction Legend

Corrections in red
Academic language suggestion in blue

Detailed Feedback

Probably one of the worst problem problems of this decade is the uncontrolled growth of the population. In a century, we have our population has passed to be one or two billions billion, to be more than seven billios billion of people. This has provided resulted in huge, harmful consequences.

For example To elaboratesome of these are the lack of food, the need for more farming lands, or the desire for new productive production systems. The dearth of land constitute constitutes the main issue. Nowadays, the superstructure has become incredibly harmful for to natural habits and animals. It has destroyed several ecosystems which provided food and home homes for a large range of fauna.

Certainly Next, the need for expantion expansion it is an important reason to enlarge towns and cities. But, despite an initial advantage, it will be a serious problem in a few years. Actually, it already is. We have to think to of renewable way ways to build and work, using and use the space that we already have, instead of expand expanding and invade invading the natural enviroment environment. This would just harm endangered animals and plants that are the base for the natural ecosystem.

Burning Finally, burning wood or deforest deforesting it, it is not the solution. We have several examples we can consider. Probably the most striking case is the Amazonian Amazon rainforest. The uncontrolled Uncontrolled deforestation has provided several issues to the enviroment environment. First of all, the lack of oxygen, is due to the cut of tropical tree trees cut, which are the main productors producers of the gas. Not Moreover, this is not considering the loss of natural diversity that affect affects also our climate.

In conclusion, I strongly think that the lack of lands land must not be the reason to destroy our world. It certanly certainly won't will not be a loss for all the humankind not saving to save the endangered animals. Think to of our children who never will see a chita cheetah or a polare polar bear. A multitude of countries have recognized the problem, and they are moving to solutions that implied imply renewable and clear clean energy.

Task Achievement:

Although you have structured your essay well, upon reading your introduction I noticed you have not provided a good hook and thesis statement and you have not stated your opinion, that is whether you agree or disagree with the statement.
...
...
...

SAMPLE Criteria Score Reports

Task Achievement   7/9

• covers the requirements of the task
• presents a clear purpose, with the tone consistent and appropriate
• clearly presents and highlights key features/bullet points but could be more fully extended

Task achievement is about how well you present a clear overview of main trends, the main features, and comparisons where relevant. IELTS raters are looking for a response that answers these three aspects directly, with relevant ideas that are fully developed.

How to Improve

To achieve a high score on the Task Achievement criterion, you need to write...

  • ...
  • ...
  • ...
  • ...
  • ...

Grammatical Range and Accuracy   5/9

• uses only a limited range of structures
• attempts complex sentences but these tend to be less accurate than simple sentences
• may make frequent grammatical errors and punctuation may be faulty; errors can cause some difficulty for the reader

Grammatical Range and Accuracy is about how you use English grammar, sentence structure, and the basic conventions of writing. Raters want to see that you can use what you know correctly, and that you can use a wide variety of structures to express your ideas.

How to Improve

The best way to improve your grammar in writing is to have a...

Another way to improve your grammar is to...

  • ...
  • ...
  • ...

Lexical Resource (Vocabulary)    6/9

• uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task
• attempts to use less common vocabulary but with some inaccuracy
• makes some errors in spelling and/or word formation, but they do not impede communication

Lexical Resource (Vocabulary) is about how you use English words. Raters are looking for writing that uses different words correctly and accurately, and that uses a wide range of words that help readers understand.

How to Improve

To improve your vocabulary in the Independent Writing task, we recommend you study...

Coherence & Cohesion    4/9

• presents information and ideas but these are not arranged coherently andthere is no clear progression in the response
• uses some basic cohesive devices but these may be inaccurate or repetitive
• may not write in paragraphs or their use may be confusing

Coherence and connections are about how you put your ideas together and link different sentences to each other. Raters want to see sentences that flow smoothly from idea to idea without confusing the reader.

How to Improve

Complete the following lessons:

Sample Grammar Correction


Probably one of the worst problem problems of this decade is the uncontrolled growth of the population. In a century, we have our population has passed to be one or two billions billion, to be more than seven billios billion of people. This has provided resulted in huge, harmful consequences.

For example To elaboratesome of these are the lack of food, the need for more farming lands, or the desire for new productive production systems. The dearth of land constitute constitutes the main issue. Nowadays, the superstructure has become incredibly harmful for to natural habits and animals. It has destroyed several ecosystems which provided food and home homes for a large range of fauna.

Certainly Next, the need for expantion expansion it is an important reason to enlarge towns and cities. But, despite an initial advantage, it will be a serious problem in a few years. Actually, it already is. We have to think to of renewable way ways to build and work, using and use the space that we already have, instead of expand expanding and invade invading the natural enviroment environment. This would just harm endangered animals and plants that are the base for the natural ecosystem.

Burning Finally, burning wood or deforest deforesting it, it is not the solution. We have several examples we can consider. Probably the most striking case is the Amazonian Amazon rainforest. The uncontrolled Uncontrolled deforestation has provided several issues to the enviroment environment. First of all, the lack of oxygen, is due to the cut of tropical tree trees cut, which are the main productors producers of the gas. Not Moreover, this is not considering the loss of natural diversity that affect affects also our climate.

In conclusion, I strongly think that the lack of lands land must not be the reason to destroy our world. It certanly certainly won't will not be a loss for all the humankind not saving to save the endangered animals. Think to of our children who never will see a chita cheetah or a polare polar bear. A multitude of countries have recognized the problem, and they are moving to solutions that implied imply renewable and clear clean energy.

Revision Exercise
Each sentence in the report below contains one or two errors. Errors may be grammar or punctuation based. Do your best correct the errors. You can edit the paragraph below. Click "Show answers" to view the corrected paragraph.

The possible effects of obesity are range of health issues.  Physical health, diseases, such type 2 diabites and high blood pressure, are known to be higher in overweight children than there peers.  These put a child’s life in danger. These may further affect mental health growing up. When children is obese they are more likely to be bullied and ostrasisized by classmates because they look or behave differently.  This has been known to cause low self-esteem and depression in many. Thus they shun friend in favor of time alone.

In conclusion, through poor diet choice and inactivity, obesity is a growing problem that can cause lasting damage to child’s mental and physical development.   Addressing this problem while young, much can be done to aid a child in becoming a healthy functioning adult.

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