The Counter Argument in IELTS Task 2: When It Raises Your Band, and When It Costs You One

A counter argument helps your Task Response band only if you answer it in the same paragraph. Raise the opposing view, leave it standing, and you have written two positions into an essay that is marked on having one.

Most pages about this teach the counter argument as a technique that raises your score, then hand you a list of phrases such as however, this argument overlooks. The phrases are fine. The missing half is the condition under which the technique works at all, which is the only part that decides your band. The bands discussed here are estimates from Bandly's scoring engine, not marks from a qualified examiner.

What a counter argument is, in exam terms

A counter argument is a point that works against the position you are defending. In an IELTS Task 2 essay it appears in one of two shapes, and the shapes are not interchangeable.

A concession with a refutation. You state the opposing point, then explain why it does not change your conclusion, inside the same paragraph. Critics argue that remote work weakens teamwork. In practice, scheduled video meetings replace most of what an office corridor provided, and the saved commuting hours are spent on the work itself.

A whole body paragraph of the other side. You give the opposing view its own paragraph with its own examples and move on to the conclusion without answering it.

The first shape strengthens a position. The second shape is a different essay, and whether it is correct depends entirely on the question type.

What the band descriptors say

The phrase counter argument does not appear anywhere in the public band descriptors for Writing Task 2. Not in Task Response, not in Coherence and Cohesion, not at any band. So no marker is looking for one, and adding one earns nothing by itself.

What the Task Response descriptors do say is this. At band 7, a response "addresses all parts of the task" and "presents a clear position throughout the response". At band 6, it "addresses all parts of the task although some parts may be more fully covered than others" and "presents a relevant position although the conclusions may become unclear or repetitive". At band 5, it "expresses a position but the development is not always clear and there may be no conclusions drawn".

Read the band 7 bullet again: a clear position throughout the response. Not in the introduction, not in the conclusion. Throughout. A body paragraph that argues the other side and never comes back is a stretch of the response where your position is not clear, which is the band 6 description almost word for word.

That is the whole mechanism. The counter argument is not rewarded and not forbidden. It is a risk you take with the one thing band 7 asks you to hold steady, and refuting it is how you pay for that risk.

When the other side gets its own paragraph

There is one family of questions where a full paragraph on each side is not a risk, it is the task.

The distinction people miss is in the last column of rows three and four. Even when the question asks for both sides in separate paragraphs, the essay still needs a position that holds throughout, because the prompt also asks for your opinion or for a judgement about which side is stronger. Giving both sides equal weight and deciding in the final sentence is how a discussion essay lands at band 6 instead of 7.

Our guides to the discuss both views essay and the to what extent do you agree question work through those two prompts in detail, because the position problem looks different in each.

A real essay where the other side was never answered

Here is the middle of an essay from our sample library. The prompt was whether the advantages of rapid tourism growth outweigh the disadvantages for developing countries, and the essay argues that they do. Task Response was estimated at 7, with an overall estimate of 6.5.

Secondly, there are some disadvantages of this growth. One major problem is that tourists can damage the environment. They throw rubbish on beaches and consume a lot of water, which is very bad for local communities. Also, sometimes the culture of the developing countries is lost because local people try to copy the tourists.

Nothing in that paragraph is wrong. The ideas are relevant, the examples are concrete enough, and the question did ask about disadvantages. The feedback on this answer said the position was consistent and that the ideas were somewhat general and not fully extended.

Look at what the paragraph does to the argument, though. The essay has promised that the advantages are bigger. This paragraph lists three reasons to think otherwise and stops. The answer to them arrives only in the conclusion, as although tourism causes some problems like environmental damage and cultural changes, I think the benefits are more important, which asserts the judgement rather than earning it.

Here is the same paragraph rewritten so the counter argument is answered where it is raised:

The growth does bring real costs. Tourists damage beaches with rubbish and consume water that local communities need, and younger people often abandon traditional dress for the styles they see visitors wearing. These costs are serious, but they are the kind a government can manage with the revenue tourism itself produces: waste collection and water infrastructure are funded from the tax on hotels and flights, while the loss of a tradition is a slower change that local demand, not tourist demand, finally decides. The economic gain, by contrast, is immediate and is difficult to replace by any other means available to a poor country.

Three things changed, and only the third is about the counter argument as a technique:

1. The signpost went. Secondly, there are some disadvantages of this growth announces a list. The rewrite states the point instead, which is a Coherence and Cohesion gain as much as a Task Response one.
2. The three disadvantages were compressed into one sentence. They were never the argument; they were the obstacle to it. Space spent listing them is space not spent answering them.
3. The answer arrived in the same paragraph. These costs are serious, but is the hinge. After it, the paragraph is back on the essay's own side, so a marker reading this paragraph alone still knows what the writer thinks.

That third change is what the band 7 bullet is describing. The position is now clear throughout the paragraph rather than clear at the start of the essay and again at the end.

You can read the full essay, the four criterion estimates and the sentence level feedback on its sample page, and compare it with a higher estimate on the same shape of question at band 8.

The three sentence pattern that works

When you want a counter argument inside a paragraph, this pattern is short enough to use under time pressure and leaves the position intact:

1. State the opposing point plainly, in one sentence. No hedging, no some people say that perhaps. A weak statement of the other side makes your answer to it look easy and unearned.
2. Concede exactly what is true about it, in one clause. These costs are serious. This is a genuine risk for small businesses. Conceding costs you nothing and makes the next sentence credible.
3. Explain why it does not change your conclusion, in one or two sentences. This is the only sentence doing work. It needs a reason, not a louder repetition of your position.

Two failure modes to watch. If step three is missing, you have written the second shape from the top of this page, and your position has a hole in it. If step one is missing and you go straight to conceding, the paragraph reads as uncertainty rather than as an argument that has considered the alternatives.

Phrases, and why they are the least important part

Useful openers for step one: Opponents of this policy argue that, It is often claimed that, The obvious objection is that. Useful hinges for step three: This is true, but, The objection holds only where, That cost is real and it is also manageable, because.

These help, and they are not the thing being marked. Lexical Resource rewards vocabulary that conveys precise meanings; a memorised linking phrase conveys no meaning of its own, and a page of them makes an essay sound assembled. Our post on memorised phrases in IELTS writing explains what that does to Lexical Resource and Coherence and Cohesion. Learn two hinges and spend the rest of your preparation on the reason that follows them.

Common mistakes

• The counter argument that is longer than the argument. If the opposing paragraph is your most detailed one, a reader will conclude that is what you believe.
• The counter argument in the conclusion. A new objection in the final paragraph has nowhere to be answered. The conclusion restates; it does not open a new front.
• The counter argument in a problem and solution essay. There is no opposing side to a question about causes and fixes. Writing one is addressing a task you were not set, which is a Task Response problem of the plainest kind.
• Attacking a weak version of the other side. Some people think tourism is completely bad is a position nobody holds. Answering it proves nothing, and it reads as avoidance.
• Hedging the refutation. However, both sides have good points is not an answer. It is the absence of one, dressed as balance.

What to do today

Take an essay you have already written for an agree or disagree question. Find the paragraph where you gave the other side some room. Check whether the answer to it is inside that paragraph or further down the page, and if it is further down, move it up and cut the signpost that introduced the list.

Then read only your body paragraphs, with the introduction and conclusion covered. If someone reading just those paragraphs could not tell you which side you are on, that is the band 6 bullet about conclusions becoming unclear, and it is fixable in two sentences.

When you want to see where your own essay stands, paste it into Bandly. It gives an estimated band for each of the four criteria and shows the sentences behind each one, so you can check whether your position survived the paragraph where you argued against yourself. The bands are estimates from a scoring engine rather than marks from a qualified examiner, and they are most useful for finding the paragraph worth rewriting.