IELTS discussion essay: both views and your opinion

The discussion essay hands you three jobs and watches how many you finish. Cover the first view, cover the second, and give your own opinion. Most candidates do the first two well, then treat the third as an afterthought, squeezing a stance into the last line or leaving it out entirely. In the exam that reads as a prompt only half answered, and Task Response marks it down for it.

This is a guide to the "discuss both views and give your own opinion" essay: how it differs from the opinion essay it's often confused with, where your opinion actually belongs, and how to keep both views balanced. It sits under the full Task 2 guide; here we go deep on this one type.

The three things a discussion essay asks

The prompt gives you two opposing views and one instruction: "Discuss both these views and give your own opinion." That instruction hides three separate demands. Present the first view fairly. Present the second view fairly. State and defend your own opinion on which is stronger. All three have to appear, and all three have to be developed, because Task Response is scored on whether the main parts of the prompt are addressed. Leave any of the three thin and you've left a main part uncovered.

This is also where the discussion essay gets confused with the opinion essay, and the confusion is expensive. An opinion essay ("to what extent do you agree?") asks you to argue one position and only concede the other side in passing. A discussion essay asks you to give both sides a full, fair paragraph before you take your stance. Treat a discussion prompt like an opinion prompt, argue one side, and skate past the other, and you've written a strong essay that answers the wrong question.

Where your opinion goes

The single decision that separates a clean discussion essay from a muddled one is when you reveal your opinion. The reliable answer: state it in the introduction, keep it consistent through the body, and restate it in the conclusion.

Holding your opinion back until the final sentence is a common piece of advice, and it's the riskier route. The Band 7 descriptor says "a clear and developed position is presented," and a position the reader can't see until the last line has spent three-quarters of the essay looking undecided. Declaring it up front costs nothing and makes every body paragraph read as evidence for a stance you've already named. What you must avoid is an opinion that never arrives, or one that contradicts the body you just wrote.

Balance is the other half. Give each view its own body paragraph and roughly equal space. Two hundred words defending one view and fifty conceding the other is the exact shape the Band 6 descriptor describes when it notes that "some may be more fully covered than others." Equal weight on both views, then a clear lean toward one, is what the higher bands reward.

A structure that stays balanced

Four paragraphs carry it, with the position running through all of them.

• Introduction. Paraphrase the two views, then state which one you find more convincing. The reader should know your opinion by the end of the introduction.
• Body paragraph one. The view you find less convincing. Present it fairly and in objective language ("supporters of this argue that..."), then show its limit.
• Body paragraph two. The view you favour. Present it, then explain why it holds more weight for you, developed with a specific example.
• Conclusion. Restate your opinion and the reason behind it. Nothing new enters.

The objective-language move is worth naming. In the body, report each view as a view held by other people ("advocates claim...", "critics counter..."), not as your own assertion. That keeps the discussion two-sided until you step in with your opinion, and it reads as the balanced treatment the task asks for.

Task Response, band by band

The descriptors turn all of this from advice into scoring. At Band 7, "the main parts of the prompt are appropriately addressed" and "a clear and developed position is presented": both views covered, your opinion clear and argued. At Band 6, "the main parts of the prompt are addressed (though some may be more fully covered than others)" and "the conclusions drawn may be unclear, unjustified or repetitive": the unequal-coverage trap and the weak-opinion trap, named. At Band 5 the descriptor reads "the main parts of the prompt are incompletely addressed", which is what a missing view or a missing opinion produces. The structure above is built to clear the Band 7 line on both counts at once.

A Band 9 model, and why it works

Take a common prompt: "Some people believe that a university degree is the best route to a good career, while others argue that practical work experience matters more. Discuss both views and give your own opinion."

Both a degree and hands-on experience open doors to a career, but they open different ones, and in my view experience has become the more reliable key of the two.

Those who back university point to the depth a degree provides. Three or four years inside a subject builds not just facts but a way of thinking, and for fields like medicine, law or engineering that foundation is not optional, since nobody can practise without it. A degree also signals to employers that its holder can commit to something demanding and see it through, which is why many graduate schemes still screen for one before anything else. For a school leaver who is still unsure of their direction, those three years also buy time to specialise, turning a vague interest into a qualification an employer can recognise.

The case for experience rests on what a lecture hall cannot teach. Someone who has spent two years in an office has met real deadlines, handled difficult colleagues and watched how an organisation makes decisions, none of which appears on a syllabus. Employers have noticed: a growing number of firms, including large technology companies, have dropped the degree requirement and now hire on demonstrated skill, because a portfolio of real work predicts performance better than a transcript.

On balance I favour experience, not because degrees have lost their worth but because the job market has shifted around them. A degree still matters most where the law requires it, yet for the majority of careers, the person who can show what they have built or run now holds the edge over the person who can only show what they studied.

Read what the essay does. The introduction names both views and states the writer's opinion in the same breath, so the position is visible from the start. Each view then gets its own paragraph and comparable space, presented in reported language ("those who back university point to...") rather than as fact. The final paragraph does not introduce a new argument; it settles the opinion already declared and gives the reason behind it. Both views covered evenly, one clear position argued throughout: around 280 words, and the two things Task Response checks for are both there.

The mistakes that cap you

Most discussion essays that stall share one of a few faults, and each maps to a Task Response line.

The opinion that never arrives is the most common: two well-argued views and no clear stance, exactly the "unclear, unjustified or repetitive" conclusions the Band 6 descriptor names. Almost as frequent is the opinion buried in the last sentence, so the essay reads as undecided until it suddenly isn't. Then there's the imbalance, one view given three times the space of the other. A quieter fault is the essay that answers as if the prompt were an opinion question, arguing one side and barely acknowledging the other, which leaves a main part of the prompt uncovered. And an opinion that contradicts the body, favouring in the conclusion the view you spent a paragraph undermining, reads as a position that was never really held.

None of these is a grammar or vocabulary problem. They are all decided in the plan, before the first sentence, which is why the coherence and cohesion of a discussion essay is set by its structure more than its linking words.

Drill it in five minutes

A full essay takes 40 minutes and days to get marked. The discussion essay's two pressure points, the opinion and the balance, train in far less.

• The thesis drill. Take one discussion prompt and write a single introduction sentence that names both views and states your opinion. Two minutes on the sentence that decides half your Task Response mark.
• The objective-language drill. Write one topic sentence for each view in reported form ("advocates argue...", "opponents counter..."), so neither reads as your own claim before you've given your opinion.
• The balance-check drill. Take an old discussion essay and count the words spent on each view. If they're far apart, rebuild the shorter one until they match.

That's the idea behind IELTS Drills. Feedback comes back tagged to a single Band Descriptor, so when a discussion essay lands at 6.5 you can see whether the half-band went on a missing opinion, an unbalanced pair of views, or the grammar, and drill that one in five minutes a day.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to give my own opinion? Yes, whenever the prompt says "give your own opinion," which almost all discussion prompts do. Discussing both views without stating your own leaves a main part of the task unaddressed and holds Task Response down.

Where should my opinion go? State it in the introduction and restate it in the conclusion, keeping it consistent through the body. An opinion revealed only in the final line reads as undecided for most of the essay.

Can I agree with both sides? You can find both partly valid, but you still have to say which you lean toward. Genuine neutrality with no stance reads as an unclear position and caps Task Response at Band 6.

Which view should I put first? Put the view you find less convincing in body one and the view you favour in body two, so the essay builds toward your own position instead of away from it.

How is this different from an opinion essay? A discussion essay covers both views fully and then gives your opinion; an opinion essay argues one position and only concedes the other side. Reading the prompt correctly decides which structure you use.

How long should it be? At least 250 words, with roughly 270 to 290 giving you room to develop both views fully. Under 250 costs you directly on Task Response.

The bottom line

The discussion essay is scored on two things at once: both views covered fairly, and one clear opinion argued from the introduction to the conclusion. Give each view its own paragraph and equal space, report each as a view rather than a fact, and declare your own stance early so the reader never has to guess it. Handle both, and the essay clears the Task Response line that trips up the candidates who answer only half the prompt. With IELTS Drills, the feedback tells you which axis is still holding you at 6.5, five minutes a day.