IELTS Writing Task 2: extend, develop, progress...

You'll see these three words in the band descriptors for writing task 2. If you want a high score, you need to extend and develop your ideas, and your writing should progress from one sentence to the next.

How do you achieve this?

My tip is to make sure that each sentence says something new. The new information could be a reason, an example, a consequence, an alternative, a prediction...

It's easy to make the mistake of repeating the same idea in slightly different ways. Don't do this. Don't feel that you need to rephrase a point that you've already made. Instead, make your point and then extend or develop it.

Comments

[Vishaal]

Great post Simon!

Please clarify a small doubt of mine. Firstly, secondly and finally structure is your recommended style of essay/ BP writing, meaning we need to present 3 ideas in a body paragraph. So, my query is, how much each idea should I develop/extend in order to meet the task achievement requirement? If I explain and exemplify each idea, my body paragraph will be bigger (Around 150 words). Thank a lot in advance.

[Thanh Do Nguyen]

Hi Simon,

As you mentioned above, we should extend and develop our ideas. However, according to some English books, we can write a concluding sentence for a paragraph:
https://ngl.cengage.com/assets/downloads/greatwi_pro0000000335/gw2_unit4.pdf

So is it OK to write concluding sentences for body paragraphs in an IELTS essay?

[Betty]

Hi Simon,
Could I ask a question about Writing part? 
We better to write Task1 first as you mentioned here. How about before start writing Task1, do you think we should take a look at Task2 question? to give ourselves what might happen in Task2 and brainstorm a bit ideas during the Task1? or just simply ignore what’s up next and try to focus on Task1? 
Thanks:-)

[Betty]

Here is the link about which writing task should we do first?
https://ielts-simon.com/ielts-help-and-english-pr/2015/03/ielts-advice-which-writing-task-should-you-do-first.html