How to Plan & Write ielts double Question Essays

Introduction

This introduction achieves three important functions:

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  It shows the examiner that you understand the question.
  

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  It acts as a guide to the examiner as to what your essay is about.
  

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  It also helps to keep you focused and on track as you write.
  

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

Main body paragraph 1 – Use car less – walk, cycle, public transport
Main body paragraph 2 – Renewable energy / natural forces – solar & wind power, wave & tidal energy



How To Write Main Body Paragraphs
Main body paragraphs in IELTS double question essays should contain 3 things:

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  Topic sentence – state your answer
  

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  Explanation – develop the idea
  

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  Example – give an example
  

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.
Main body paragraph 1 – Use car less – walk, cycle, public transport, only travel when really necessary
Topic sentence: 
Conserving energy is a responsibility of every individual and an important way in which we can all do our bit is to use more energy-efficient means of transport. 

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

Explanation sentence: 
The easiest way to do this is to leave the car at home and walk or cycle to our destination if it isn’t too far away, or take public transport for longer journeys. Another way to reduce our fuel consumption is to car share.

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.

Example sentence:
Whenever my friends and I get together for coffee, we agree to meet up at a café that we can each get to without having to drive our cars there. We usually go on foot or ride our bikes. If everyone made small decisions like this, it would make a real difference.

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.