Is This a Positive or a Negative Development? The IELTS Essay That Needs a Verdict

Some IELTS Writing Task 2 questions describe a change and then ask one short question about it: is this a positive or a negative development? The change is easy to write about. The judgement is the part that gets left out.

A typical answer explains why the change is happening, lists some good points, lists some bad points, and ends by saying the situation is complicated. Every sentence can be accurate and the English can be strong. The essay still loses marks, because the question asked you to decide and the answer never decided.

What the question is actually asking

Task Response is the criterion that covers whether you answered the question, presented a clear position and developed your ideas. For this question type, a clear position means one thing: by the end of the introduction, the reader knows your verdict.

The word development means the change described in the prompt, not the topic in general.

In many countries, young people are living with their parents for longer before moving out. Is this a positive or a negative development?

Your verdict is not about young people, or about housing, or about family life. It is about one thing: whether people living with their parents for longer is good or bad.

That narrowing matters, because an essay that argues about housing costs in general has drifted off the question, which is the failure described in our guide to off topic essays.

Two structures are legal. One is not.

The word or in the prompt does not force you to pick a single side, but it does force you to reach a conclusion.

The third row is the one that costs marks. It is not a wrong opinion, it is a missing answer.

The one sided structure is easier to write under time pressure, because both body paragraphs point the same way and nothing has to be weighed. The mixed structure is honest about a change that really does cut both ways, but it demands one extra sentence in the conclusion, naming which side is stronger and why. If you choose mixed and run out of time before that sentence, you have written the third row by accident.

This question type is also not the same as a discussion essay. In a discuss both views prompt the two views are given to you and you add your own opinion, which is set out in our guide to discuss both views essays. Here no views are given, so there is nothing to summarise and nobody else's argument to report.

The verdict sentence

Write it twice, once in the introduction and once in the conclusion, in different words.

• Weak: This essay will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this development.
• Weak: There are both positive and negative aspects to this issue.
• Clear: In my view this change is largely positive, because it gives young adults financial room that previous generations did not have.
• Clear: Although the trend has social costs, I believe its economic benefits make it a positive development overall.

The two clear versions name a side and carry a reason. The two weak versions announce that an essay is coming. A two sentence introduction that paraphrases the prompt and then states the verdict is enough, and the shape is described in our guide to introductions.

A worked answer

The prompt below is written for practice here rather than taken from a real exam paper.

In many countries, young people are living with their parents for longer before moving out. Is this a positive or a negative development?

Sample answer, 276 words.

In a growing number of countries, adults in their twenties remain in the family home rather than renting or buying somewhere of their own. Although this delays some kinds of independence, I believe it is a positive development, mainly for financial and family reasons. The clearest benefit is financial. Rent in most large cities now takes a large share of a young worker's salary, so a graduate who pays little or nothing for housing can save, repay a student loan, or train for a better job. A friend of mine stayed at home for three years after university and used the money she saved to qualify as an accountant, which would have been impossible if she had been paying rent from her first month of work. Leaving home at twenty is only independence if the person can afford it. The second benefit is to the family. Adult children at home can share costs and practical work, such as caring for a grandparent or looking after a younger sibling after school. In many cultures this arrangement was always normal, and treating it as a failure is a fairly recent idea in a small number of countries. The main objection is that living at home can delay the skills people learn by running a household alone, such as budgeting and dealing with landlords. This is a real cost, but it is a delay rather than a loss, and an adult who moves out at twenty eight with savings is better prepared than one who moves out at twenty with debt. Overall, this trend is a sensible response to high housing costs rather than a sign of weakness, so I regard it as positive.

What that essay does

Four things are worth copying.

1. The verdict arrives in sentence two. The reader knows the position before any argument is made.
2. Each body paragraph has one reason, developed. The financial paragraph does not list five short points; it makes one point and supports it with a concrete example.
3. The objection is answered, not just mentioned. The third paragraph concedes a real cost and then says why it does not change the verdict. A concession that is never answered reads as a change of mind.
4. The conclusion restates the position in new words. It does not introduce a new argument.

The example in paragraph two is personal, which is allowed: Task 2 asks for examples from your own knowledge or experience. See our guide to examples in essays.

The two part variant

Sometimes the judgement is the second half of a longer question.

Why are more young people living with their parents for longer? Is this a positive or a negative development?

Now you owe two answers: causes in one body paragraph, judgement in the other. Give each part roughly half the essay. Writing four paragraphs on causes and one sentence of verdict is the commonest way to lose Task Response marks here, and the balance is explained in our guide to two part questions.

What to do today

• Take six Task 2 prompts of this type and write only the verdict sentence for each one. Twelve words, naming a side and a reason. Do not write the essays.
• Open your last essay of this type and underline your position sentence. If you cannot find one, that is the finding.
• Rewrite one concession paragraph so it ends by answering the objection rather than leaving it standing.

A missing verdict is almost invisible to the person who wrote the essay, because you know what you think even when the page does not say it. Pasting your answer into Bandly returns an estimated band for each of the four criteria and names the sentences behind the Task Response estimate, which is where an unstated position shows up. The bands are estimates from a scoring engine rather than marks from a qualified examiner, so use them to find the gap, then read your introduction and conclusion side by side and check that both say the same thing.