IELTS Writing Balance Opinion Essay
In a balanced opinion essay, you are given two opposing propositions. You should discuss each of them and give your opinion.
Strategy
As with other IELTS writing tasks, you will likely do better with this kind of essay if you have a clear structure in mind for writing this essay. The following is one way to write this type of essay, but it is effective.
Step 1: Understand the Issue
With any IELTS writing question, it is important to understand what the question is asking before you begin writing.
A balanced opinion task will give you two propositions, so you first need to identify what these are. Then think about the following questions:
- Why is this an important issue?
- What’s your opinion about it?
- Why?
- What would someone who disagrees with you say?
- Why are they wrong?
Example
As an example, let’s take the following question:
Some people believe that the Olympic games should take place in the same city each time. Other people argue it should continue to move country every 4 years.
If you’re as sporty as me, you might wonder why anyone would care where the Olympics take place. Well this is an important issue because the Olympics are a very expensive event that can also provide considerable financial benefits to the host city or region.
You might agree that the Olympics should stay in one place (maybe Greece) since this would surely cut the cost of the games considerably. The infrastructure would only need to be built once and then maintained and upgraded as necessary.
However, moving the games every 4 years allows more countries to benefit from the rewards of hosting. Given that rich countries already have a lot of the world’s wealth, this gives a chance to a less well-off country to benefit (in theory at least).
The reason why this issue is important is that the students studying today are the workforce of tomorrow. Well-educated employees should result in a better-performing economy with a better-run government. This will generally be a good reason why any education question is important. Note the word “now” in this question – we can also point out that students and parents have never had greater choice when it comes to their education.
I suspect that most of you agree with this statement. In this case, two arguments for this side might be:
- the teacher can give students more individual attention,
- students are likely to face fewer distractions from their classmates.
You may think that these arguments are a bit obvious. That’s fine – you don’t need to reinvent the wheel and the more obvious your arguments, the more likely the examiner will know that you understood the question.
Step 2: Write the Introduction
With a balanced opinion essay, we can still use our three statements for the introduction:
- global statement
- thesis statement
- outline statement
Remember that in our global statement, we say why this is an important issue. For example:
Every four years, the Olympic games cost their host nation billions of dollars to organise. Many people question whether that money is well invested, or whether it would be more cost-efficient to have the Olympics in one regular location.
in the these statement, you give your opinion:
In my opinion, choosing one location for the Olympics makes more financial sense…
Finally, your outline statement tells the examiner what they will read about in the next paragraph. You can simply continue the thesis statement with “because” or “as”.
… as this would dramatically cut the building and other costs involved.
Step 3: Write the Body
You will want two body paragraphs in your balanced opinion essay. The first will deal with the side that you most agree with.
The First Argument
Your first body paragraph should begin with a statement of your argument. This is your topic statement. For example:
Holding the Olympics in the same place would be far cheaper than constantly moving them.
Then use explanation and examples to support your answer:
The biggest costs involved are undoubtedly construction of the Olympic venues and infrastructure. Every Olympics, new stadia and facilities are built. By having the Olympics in one place, buildings only need to be built once and then maintained or upgraded. These savings are likely to result in more profit being made during the Olympics, some of which could be used to support development in the poorest nations.
The Second Argument
The second body paragraph of your balanced opinion essay should consider the alternative side. We can start with a linking statement. This will typically include a linking word or phrase that shows contrast e.g. “on the other hand”, “however” or “despite”.
On the other hand, there are benefits to the Olympic games moving country.
In the next sentence you should give your topic statement:
If the games move, the benefits of hosting them is shared among more of the world.
Once more, you need to develop and support your argument:
Not only does the host gain prestige and a chance to show off their country to the world, but they also experience a boom in their economy from ticket sales and tourism.
In a balanced opinion essay, you can make the side you agree with stronger by overcoming this point. For example:
However, while this is true in theory, the countries that most desperately need these benefits are unlikely to be able to afford the initial outlay for the games. For this reason, wealthy nations tend to be chosen to host the games.
Step 4: Write the Conclusion
The final step is to write the conclusion. There are two things that you need to include:
- rephrase your arguments.
- rephrase your opinion.
Choosing one country to act as permanent host of the games would greatly reduce the expense involved with the Olympics. This is unlikely to be agreed upon by all countries, especially the wealthier nations who typically benefit from hosting. However, if the permanent host is obligated to share the profits with the least developed nations, this provides a much fairer model.
Practice Questions
Click here for all IELTS writing task 2 practice questions and sample answers.
