How to Plan & Write
IELTS Double Question Essays

IELTS double question essays are also known as ‘direct question’ or ‘two questions’ essays. They are distinguished by two characteristics:

Here are 3 examples:

In this lesson, I’m going to demonstrate step-by-step how to plan and write IELTS double question essays.

Here’s what we’ll be covering:

Click the links to see lessons on each of these Task 2 essay writing topics. 

Once you understand the process, practice on past questions. Take your time at first and gradually speed up until you can plan and write an essay of at least 250 words in the 40 minutes allowed in the exam.

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3 Common Mistakes

These three errors are common in IELTS double question essays.

Many students make the mistake of only answering one of the questions, or focusing more on one question than the other which leads to an unbalanced essay. Both these errors will seriously affect your score for task achievement.

You must outline everything you are going to write about in the introduction. This is your blueprint for the whole essay. I’ll show you how to do this and get your essay off to a great start.

It’s easy to mistake IELTS double question essays for one of the other four types of Task 2 essays, especially opinion or discussion essays. Each should be answered in a slightly different way.

Analysing the question properly is essential to avoiding this error. I’ll also show you how to do this and give you a simple 4 part structure for planning your essay.

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Essay Structure

Let’s look at this essay structure straight away. You can use it to write any IELTS double question essay. It’s easy to learn and will enable you to quickly plan and write a high-level essay.

This structure will give us a well-balanced essay with 4 paragraphs.

We now need some ideas to add to the structure and we’ll have everything we need for our essay.

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How To Plan IELTS Double Question Essays

Here’s the question we’re going to be answering in our model essay followed by the 3 steps of the planning process.

# 1  Analyse the question

This is an essential step in the planning process and will ensure that you answer the question fully. It’s quick and easy to do. You just need to identify 3 different types of words:

Topics words are the ones that identify the general subject of the question and will be found in the statement part of the question.

So, this question is about ‘fossil fuels’.

Many people will do this first step of the process and then write about the topic in general. This is a serious mistake and leads to low marks for task achievement.

Now that we know what the general topic is, we need to understand exactly what aspect of fossil fuels we're being asked to write about.

 

The other keywords in the question tell you the specific things you must write about. For IELTS double question essays, these will often be in the instructions, that is, the actual questions.

By highlighting these words, it’s easy to identify the topics. Your essay must only include ideas relevant to these ideas.

 

The instruction words are the questions themselves. These tell you exactly what type of information is required and each will become the topic for one of the two main body paragraphs.

The first body paragraph will answer the first question (How?) and the second body paragraph will answer the second question (What?).

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# 2  Generate ideas

The next task is to generate some ideas to write about.

There are several different ways to think up ideas. I cover them fully on the IELTS Essay Planning page.

We’re going to use the ‘friends technique’. This is the method I prefer as it allows you to take a step back from the stress of the exam situation and think more calmly.

Here’s how it works. Imagine that you are in a casual conversation with a friend over a cup of coffee and they ask you this question. What are the first thoughts to come into your head? Plan your essay around these ideas.

Doing this will help you to come up with simple answers in everyday language rather than straining your brain to think of amazing ideas using high-level language, which isn’t necessary.

You might want to try this yourself before reading on for my ideas.

Here are my ideas as I thought of them:

Don’t spend long on this as you only need one or two ideas.

There is so much to write about this topic that we have to be very careful we don’t try to include too many different ideas and just end up with a list for each question rather than a well-developed essay.

Choose one main idea for each part of the question. My advice on making your selection is to choose ideas that you can quickly think of examples for.

Here are my choices:

We’re almost ready to start writing our IELTS double question essay but first, we have one other small task to do.

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# 3  Vocabulary

During the planning stage, quickly jot down some vocabulary that comes to mind as you decide which ideas you are going to write about, especially synonyms of key words. This will save you having to stop and think of the right language while you’re writing.

For the ideas I’ve chosen, useful words will include:

With that done, we can focus on the first paragraph of the essay – the introduction.

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How To Write an Introduction

The best introductions to IELTS double question essays have a simple 2 part structure:

It should:

1)  Paraphrase the question

Start your introduction by paraphrasing the statement part of the question.

We are simply saying the same thing in a different way and using different vocabulary.

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2)  Outline statement

Now we need to add an outline statement where we outline the two main points that we’ll cover in the rest of the essay, that is, the answers to the two questions.

We need to be very specific about what we are going to write about.

Here's a reminder of the ideas I’ve chosen to answer the two questions:

How can we conserve these resources?

• Use car less – walk, cycle, public transport

What are some alternatives to fossil fuels?

• Natural forces –solar & wind power, wave & tidal energy

Note my use of synonyms to replace key words in the question. You don’t have to replace every key word but do so where possible whilst ensuring that your language sounds natural.

So, let’s bring the two elements of our introduction together.

     Introduction

This introduction achieves three important functions:

The two ideas in your introduction will become your two main body paragraphs.

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How To Write Main Body Paragraphs

Main body paragraphs in IELTS double question essays should contain 3 things:

Main Body Paragraph 1 – Answer question 1

The topic sentence summarises the main idea of the paragraph. That’s all it needs to do so it doesn’t have to be complicated.

It plays an important role in ensuring that your ideas flow logically from one to another. It does this by acting as a signpost for what is to come next, that is, what the paragraph will be about.

If you maintain a clear development of ideas throughout your essay, you will get high marks for task achievement and cohesion and coherence.

We’ll now take the idea for our first main body paragraph and create our topic sentence.

Next, we must write an explanation sentence that develops the idea.

Finally, we add an example to support our main point. If you can’t think of a real example, it’s fine to make one up, as long as it’s believable. The examiner isn’t going to check your facts. Alternative, you could add another piece of information to support your idea but an example is better.

That’s the 3 parts of our first main body paragraph complete. Here’s the finished paragraph.

We now follow the same process for our second main body paragraph.

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Main Body Paragraph 2 – Answer question 2

Again, we’ll now take the idea I’ve chosen for this paragraph and create our topic sentence.

Now for the explanation where we expand on this idea.

Finally, an example to support our main point.

That’s the 3 parts of our second main body paragraph complete. Here’s the finished paragraph.

Now we need a conclusion and our IELTS double question essay is done.

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How To Write a Conclusion

The conclusion is a summary of the main points in your essay and can often be done in a single sentence. It should never introduce new ideas.

If you're below the minimum 250 words after you’ve written your conclusion, you can add a prediction or recommendation statement.

Our essay is already over the minimum word limit so we don’t need this extra sentence but you can learn more about how to write a prediction or recommendation statement for IELTS double question essays on the Task 2 Conclusions page.

The conclusion is the easiest sentence in the essay to write but one of the most important.

A good conclusion to an IELTS double question essay will:

If you achieve this, you’ll improve your score for both task achievement and cohesion and coherence which together make up 50% of the overall marks. Without a conclusion, you’ll score below band 6 for task achievement.

You can start almost any final paragraph of an IELTS double question essay with the words:

Now all you need to do is briefly summarise the main ideas into one or two sentences.

Here’s a top tip. Go back and read the introduction to the essay because this is also a summary of the essay. It outlines what you are going to write about.

To create a great conclusion, you simply have to paraphrase the introduction.

Introduction:

Here is the same information formed into a conclusion:

That’s it. We’ve completed our essay. Here it is with the 4 paragraphs put together.

Finished IELTS double question essay.

 

Go through this lesson as many times as you need to in order to fully understand it and put in lots of practice writing IELTS double question essays from past exam questions. Practice is the only way to improve your skills.

More Help With IELTS Double Question Essays
& Other Task 2 Essays

Task 2:

IELTS Writing Task 2 – The format, the 5 question types, the 5 step essay writing strategy & sample questions. All the key information you need to know.

The 5 Types of Task 2 Essay – How to recognise the 5 different types of Task 2 essays. 15 sample questions to study and a simple planning structure for each essay type.

Understanding Task 2 Questions – How to quickly and easily analyse and understand IELTS Writing Task 2 questions.

How To Plan a Task 2 Essay – Discover why essay planning is essential & learn a simple 4 step strategy, the 4 part essay structure & 4 methods of generating ideas.

How To Write a Task 2 Introduction – Find out why a good introduction is essential. Learn how to write one using a simple 3 part strategy & discover 4 common mistakes to avoid.

How To Write Task 2 Main Body Paragraphs – Learn the simple 3 part structure for writing great main body paragraphs and also, 3 common mistakes to avoid. 

How To Write Task 2 Conclusions – Learn the easy way to write the perfect conclusion for a Task 2 essay. Also discover 4 common mistakes to avoid.

Task 2 Marking Criteria – Find out how to meet the marking criteria in Task 2. See examples of good and poor answers & learn some common mistakes to avoid.

The 5 Task 2 Essay Types:

Step-by-step instructions on how to plan & write high-level essays. Model answers & common mistakes to avoid.

  Opinion Essays

  Discussion Essays

  Problem Solution Essays

  Advantages & Disadvantages Essays

  Double Question Essays

Other Related Pages

IELTS Writing Test – Understand the format & marking criteria, know what skills are assessed & learn the difference between the Academic & General writing tests.

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