Common Question Words in Task 2 Prompts, and What They Actually Ask

One of the most consequential mistakes in Task 2 has nothing to do with grammar, vocabulary, or even the quality of the ideas in an essay — it happens before a single sentence is written, at the moment a candidate reads the prompt and misidentifies what specific kind of response it's actually asking for. IELTS Task 2 prompts draw from a fairly small, recurring set of question patterns, and each one requires a genuinely different essay structure and a different balance of content. A well-written, well-organised essay that answers the wrong question type — a discussion essay written in response to a prompt that actually asked for a clear personal opinion, for instance — is capped in its Task Response score regardless of how strong the language is elsewhere, because Task Response specifically assesses whether the response does what the question actually asked, not just whether it's well written on a related topic.

"To what extent do you agree or disagree" is one of the most commonly misread patterns, because candidates often assume it demands a single, absolute position — full agreement or full disagreement — when it actually asks for a position along a spectrum. A genuinely strong response can agree with significant reservations, agree with one part of a claim while disagreeing with another, or take a measured middle position, as long as the specific extent of that agreement is clearly and consistently stated throughout the essay, rather than shifting position between paragraphs. What this question type specifically penalises is vagueness about where you actually stand, not a position that happens to be nuanced rather than absolute.

"Discuss both views and give your own opinion" requires genuine, balanced development of both perspectives before presenting your own view — not a token, one-sentence acknowledgment of the opposing view followed by an essay that's really just arguing your own position from start to finish. This is one of the most frequently mishandled prompt types precisely because it's easy to privately already hold a strong opinion on the topic and let that opinion dominate the entire essay, effectively skipping the genuine discussion the prompt explicitly asked for. A correct response gives each of the two views its own properly developed paragraph, treating both with real substance, before a final section states and briefly justifies your own opinion.

"What are the causes of this problem, and what solutions can you suggest" is a two-part prompt requiring genuinely balanced attention to both halves — some specific, developed causes and some specific, developed solutions — rather than the common pattern of spending three-quarters of the essay exploring causes in depth and then appending a single underdeveloped sentence of solutions at the end. Because this prompt type explicitly asks for two distinct things, an essay that thoroughly addresses only one of them has left part of the task unanswered, however well-developed the completed half turns out to be.

"Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages" is meaningfully more demanding than the simpler "discuss the advantages and disadvantages" phrasing, even though the two prompts can look similar at a glance. The simpler phrasing asks only for a balanced discussion of both sides; the "outweigh" phrasing additionally requires you to weigh the two sides against each other and reach an explicit, stated conclusion about which one is greater overall. An essay that lists several advantages and several disadvantages without ever explicitly stating and justifying which side wins has covered the content but has not actually completed the specific comparative judgement the question asked for.