A lot of my IELTS students struggle with how many ideas they need and how to structure their essay.
This article with explain clearly what you need to do and why. Read some examples of actual IELTS essays here.
Let’s look at an example of this kind of question:
The price of rail travel in some countries increases annually while average incomes remain relatively stable. This causes a problem for many people who rely on trains for travelling to work.
What do you think are the causes of this problem and what measures could be taken to solve them?
Don’t miss out on my new Patreon exclusive essays here if you want to really improve on IELTS!
Dave
How many causes and solutions?
You’re being asked to discuss causes and solutions (measures) but in fact it’s better if you can think of just one or a maximum of two main causes and solutions.
This means you can spend more time developing those ideas which will then improve your Task Achievement score.
Possible Essay structures
1. Separately – you discuss the main cause first then discuss the main solution.
You need one or two main causes and one or two main solutions.
Paragraph 1 (intro) |
Paraphrase both questions and state the main cause and solution. |
Paragraph 2 (body 1) |
Explain the main cause(s). Support your ideas. |
Paragraph 3 (body 2) |
Explain the possible solution(s) . Give reasons to support your ideas. |
Paragraph 4 (conclusion) |
Re-state the problem and summarise your main ideas. |
2. Together – you discuss the causes one at a time together with its solution.
Again, you need at two main causes and two main solutions.
Paragraph 1 (intro) |
Paraphrase both questions and state you will discuss some causes and solutions. |
Paragraph 2 (body 1) |
Explain the first main cause and suggest a suitable solution. Give reasons to support your idea.. |
Paragraph 3 (body 2) |
Explain the second main cause and suggest a suitable solution. Give reasons to support your idea.. |
Paragraph 4 (conclusion) |
Re-state the problem and summarise your main ideas. |
Could you please give some ideas about this topic as it is not getting clear which problem needs to be considered for giving causes and solutions
Do you mean this question: Is travelling by train in your country more expensive than in the past? Why?
How could train companies save money?
If so, the problem is that travelling by train is more expensive. What are some possible causes of that? Is it because of new trains? Or is it related to a growing middle class? Are they used less frequently?
Does that make it clearer for you?
The price of rail travel in some countries increases annually while average incomes remain relatively stable. This causes a problem for many people who rely on trains for travelling to work.
What do you think are the causes of this problem and what measures could be taken to solve them?
I need the reply to this question
I haven’t written a sample answer on that particular question. I can give you a brief answer, which is that the maintanence and improvement of railway lines causes countries to raise rates on an annual basis, regardless of the status of the economy. That is why salaries may remain stable or even fall in bad economic times while fares continue to rise.
Does that answer your question?
Thanks Sir .. really appreciate your efforts ..
It would be really nice of you if you can give me some idea on the solutions of it
I can, but why don’t you try to think of some ideas yourself and comment them below? Then I’ll give you some feedback. This post may help you think of ideas: https://howtodoielts.com/how-to-brainstorm-ideas-10-amazing-ways/
Okk.. lemme try.
Government should provide pass facility for daily commuters which means they would be able to travel on less fare..
Another government should allocate more budget on rail in the year where average income is less so that it can be developed without increasing the fare.
Kindly comment on these and do provide some more
Thanks in advance
Those are good! We call those ‘free passes’ and you can say that governments should allocate more of the budget particularly in times of economic stagnation.
But remember the question is about causes and solutions – so you need a main idea for the causes as well which could related to the reluctance of governments to lower prices especially if they aren’t getting as much money from taxes or the need to maintain/update existing lines.
Another solution would be for governments to make the fares cheaper when people are commuting to work and more expensive at other hours, when people may be using the rails for leisure purposes.
Is that helpful?
Thanks for giving detailed answer.. ☺
You’re welcome!
Hi Dave
Nice to meet you! 🙂
examples of actual IELTS essays here
Above hyper link takes user to the task 1. I think it is a technical problem.
Thank you for pointing that out – I will fix it!
The rail travel is widely recognized the convenient, punctually reliable, and cheaper source to travel. But every end of the year an increase in fare is failed to gain its acceptance by its low-income commuters especially. The shift in prices are due to its expensive labor and maintenance. This surge can be overcome by both hunting skilled-workers and by producing high-quality material within country for its long life.
Undoubtedly, the labor of skilled-workers is very expensive nowadays owing to its deficiency in the country. Such an infinitesimal number cause to demand recruitment from other countries. For instance, every year Canada seeks overseas for technical workers which can become helping-hand for its rapidly flourishing economy. Another reason is, the sustainability of rail lines requires upper-cost material for care such as high-quality iron rods, grease for its flexibility, continue supervising facilities, security alarm system etc. For instance, if the rail lines would be poor, the passenger’s safety of life would be at risk all-time. This has happened every day in under-developed countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc, where people are killed by rail accidents each day, even though numbers are soaring.
In order to curb this problem, it becomes the utmost responsibility of the Governments to look for highly demand technicians within the country resultant capital will be circulated within the country and there would be no extra need to pay high-wages, extra incentives and discounts on amenities to ensure their existence. For example, in quest for technical advanced people, governments should render its residents full resources and required aid to ascertain the quality education is being provided and attaining or not. Furthermore, government should supervise whether raw materials for rail sustenance are decisively creating in the country or importing by which the spread of extra money could be undertaken which is ultimately causes high in ticket prices. These possible solutions will definitely help lower the ticket prices and keep the travelers always happy, kind and grateful.
To conclude, I firmly believe that the on-going quarrels in commuters for ticket prices would come to halt, If these ideas are successfully implemented. However, the unnoticed capital which is flying overseas could bring to an under control and rather be spent on other good purposes like wildlife conservation.
Good effort!
It is a little wordy – especially with your topic sentences – write a little more simply.
Good range with vocabulary and grammar but you should work more on your accuracy.
thanks to rectify me bro
You’re welcome!
The trend in most countries nowadays is the rising train fare annually and a matter of fact, as the wages won’t follow the same trend, this places a lot of pressure on those who use trains for commuting to work. While there can be many reasons for the fare hikes, in this essay we will touch upon a few of them and remedies too.
First, the reason for the train fare hikes is that the rail companies have been till now selling the train tickets on discount only. This is to draw more people to rail transport. But, this cannot continue forever and hence the rail has slowly demanded a fair price. If you take the case of Indian Railways, they charge only 60% of the actual cost to its passengers, and the remaining is borne by the Government of India itself. To remedy this, I suggest the companies pay for the remaining price so that the employees are not burdened by the prices on a regular basis.
The other reason is the ongoing disinvestment of the Railways. In many of these countries, the Railways has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Government. As you can see, many countries have gone for disinvestment for economic reasons or to avoid focus on transportation alone. Once these rail companies are transferred to private companies, the prices are going to be increasing. To encounter this, the governments should still regulate the fares continuously and make sure it does not affect hard-working labor.
In conclusion, while the prices are going to hurt the commuting employees, the governments and employers should step up and bear the burden.
Now a days, more people are choosing to socialize online rather than face to face. It is a positive or negative development.
These days, many people are communicating online rather than meeting in person. From my perspective, using online to stay connected is a negative development and it will create lots of problems.
Technology had helped people to stay connected but it has also lead to unhealthy disorder. For example, 90% of younger generation had undergone depression and suicidal attempt due to loneliness. As they started to isolate themselves from others and had been interacting with people only through internet. Which is very unhealthy and cause these disorder. Moreover, it is very difficult for parent to monitor their kids and protect them through social network.
Another negative aspect of this will harm individual life. To illustrate, people especially younger generation tend to make a relationship through different social website like facebook without even knowing him/her. Besides this, people used fake identities to make business and some even make their living through it. Which is very risky and will create lots of obstacle in people life. Non the less people will lost their trust in humanity. Lastly, choosing social network to socialse will make them distance between family and friends. It will also cause jealousy and lost in fait in one another. For example, my sister does not stay with us and we rarely meet. We used to interact like once in a blue moon through video calling and it did create a lots of distance between us as we work in different country.
To conclude, socializing through social network have way more negative development. As it create lots of problems and it is very unhealthy. Therefore, it is much better to meet rather then connecting through online.