IELTS Argumentative Essay Argument Methods

The IELTS writing part requires candidates to complete two articles within one hour, one is an explanatory essay with charts and tables of more than 150 words, and the second is an argumentative essay of more than 250 words. . When it comes to IELTS argumentative essays, its test points can be summarized from three aspects, namely structure, content, and language. This article will discuss its content. IELTS writing usually revolves around several major categories of topics, such as education, technology, media, etc., which have appeared more frequently from 2009 to now. Therefore, candidates should be prepared to expand their arguments before the exam and strive to practice each topic. Several frequently asked questions.

In IELTS argumentative essays, whether it is a bilateral argument or a unilateral argument, the expansion of arguments is very important. Only by demonstrating a reason logically can you convince the examiner that your argument is reasonable. And reasonable expansion requires some supplementary methods after having the materials. Common methods include explanation, exemplification, raising figures, contrast & comparison, making concession, quotation, etc.

1. Explanation

Sentence pattern:

This is to say,?

To be more precise,?

By this I mean,?

One of the biggest characteristics of Chinese students’ way of thinking is that they beat around the bush and don’t get straight to the point. This is often very different from the way Westerners think. People usually prefer to speak to the point rather than being subtle. This causes many candidates to easily deviate from the topic when using reasonable argumentation methods during the argumentation process, thereby lowering their test scores. For example, in a class, the author asked a student to analyze the reason why it is difficult for university students to find a job after graduation?. The student's answer was "the increasing world population". After the candidate gave the answer, he conducted Analysis, he believes that a larger population means an increase in the number of college students, which means that there are more senior students and the competition for jobs has become fierce, so it is difficult for them to find a job. This will combine the two seemingly unrelated things. The two things turned around several times and finally connected together. Chinese students like to study the root cause of a problem, but in fact, if this reason is not related to the topic at all, it can be judged as off-topic, so it is better to just say "the increasingly fierce competition", which is more convincing. Based on this feature, teachers from Lange Overseas Examination Research Center suggest that candidates should only explain around the topic sentence when reasoning, so that they will not go off topic. Let's look at the following topic sentence, which is expanded through explanation.

E.g. The retired people tend to offer service for the benefits of the family and the community.

After reading this sentence, we may feel that the benefits of the family and the community I am confused as to what the benefits are and what services are provided.

This is to say, the elderly always spend their time in taking care of the family and doing household chores for the family as well as organizing charitable activities for the community.

That’s it. Can explain the above sentence very well.

2. Example (exemplification)

Sentence pattern:

For example, for instance, to illustrate, ?

Take? as example, ?

Giving examples is also a more commonly used argumentation method among Chinese candidates, but in the process of using it, some problems that are not in line with Western thinking often arise. Since we are giving examples, as the name suggests, we have to cite a specific example, such as someone or a certain event, instead of adding some people after for example, which cannot be regarded as a specific example at all. The author asked a student to give an example during class. The students in high school suffer from increasing pressure? The student’s example is (Chinese): On a certain day of a certain month of a certain year, I passed by my neighbor’s door and happened to see their house. The daughter committed suicide by jumping off a building due to excessive stress. This example is unreasonable in three ways. First, a certain date of a certain year, a certain month, is too specific and cannot be trusted; second, I saw her commit suicide by jumping off a building with my own eyes. Even if it is true, it is not credible. It is better to say that it was read in a newspaper or news. Third, she was under too much pressure. Did she yell before jumping off the building? Am I too stressed? Should I tell everyone the reason for jumping off the building? It is obviously unreasonable. Therefore, candidates should pay attention to the above three aspects. Then we also use an exercise to expand the topic sentence with examples.

E.g. Most parents tend to overuse punishment in their education of the kids.

When we see such a sentence, the first step in our mind is to think of a specific event, and then think about the specific event. For people, you can get the following example.

For example, only because of the bad performance in primary school, the child of my neighbor was inflicted corporate punishment. In this case, it does nothing but harm to the child?s physical and mental development.

Draw a conclusion from the example, which makes the argument more convincing.

3. Raising figures

Sentence pattern:

As is reported/investigated/researched, ?

It is reported that ?

A recent research conducted by ?Bureau reveals that?

The argumentation method of listing data is more convincing than reasoning. We need to do more accumulation in our daily life. Cope with enumerating some relevant figures for various topics that will appear in the exam. The data in the IELTS test can actually be divided into two categories. One category is scientifically based and clearly recorded data, such as some news events, the number of deaths or injuries in the Sichuan earthquake, spontaneous combustion of buses, etc. These are all queryable. If the candidate does not have a solid grasp of these data, there is no need to list them. The other type refers to data from some survey reports, such as how much time college students spend on average studying on their own a day, how much time junior high school students spend on average playing computer games a day, etc. This type of data has no basis to rely on. Candidates can give their own data based on the content of the argument. , but it must be logical. Let’s use the argument method of column data through an example:

Eg. The retired people tend to offer service for the benefits of the family and the community.

To answer such a topic sentence To expand the column data, we must first find the point where the data can be listed. There are two aspects to this question, one is the age of the retired elderly, and the other is the time spent. Combining the above sentence patterns, the argument process is as follows:

As is reported, the average time that the retired within the age group above 65 spend on the family and the community is at its length of about 5 hours per day.

4. Comparison (contrast amp; comparison)

Candidates can compare the same or opposite things. The same relationship is called comparison, and the opposite relationship is called contrast. ). For this type of argument, we focus on mastering some conjunctions with contrasting relationships:

In contrast, by contrast, on the contrary, while, whereas

Likewise, similarly

5. Quotation

In the process of writing an argument, when expressing some opinions, it will be more convincing if you can use quotes from famous people to illustrate the views of a certain celebrity and your own views. It is to reach a consensus and form a consensus. However, citing requires candidates to have considerable accumulation. Due to the tight preparation time, such arguments can be used sparingly. In addition, experts from the Lange Overseas Examination Research Center remind candidates to remember that quoting famous quotes means quoting other people's opinions, so you only need to quote two or three sentences that can prove your own opinions, and stop there. Not in Chinese writing, the more quotes the better.

6. Making concession

The argument of concession is a concept that is unfamiliar to Chinese candidates. In fact, when learning adverbial clauses, we have learned about the relationship of concession. We need to take a step back and admit it. A fact that is contrary to your own point of view, and then turn to give your own point of view, denying the former. The sentence pattern is as follows:

Although/ though/ in spite of the fact that ?

As is granted/ Admittedly, ?

Opponents would argue that ?

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To give a simple example, if a boy confesses to a girl and is rejected by the girl, she will express her thoughts tactfully with concession arguments. She will first admit some of the boy's advantages, and then turn around and say that she does not Like him. This way you can express your point of view without hurting the other person. The advantage of this method of concession is that it can look at an issue more comprehensively, and the rebuttal can be more targeted. Specific examples are as follows:

Eg. People don not believe that saving money is a good idea in modern society.

The point of this Topic sentence is very clear. Saving money is not a good idea in modern society. The idea, obviously, is that with a concession argument, we must first admit the advantages of saving money and then refute it based on the points listed.

As is granted, saving money offers people a sense of security in case of emergency. However, people tend to believe that wise investment can get more profits.