IELTS Task 2 Topics With Model Answers, Marked

A list of Task 2 topics is not practice material on its own. Twenty questions tell you what the exam talks about; they do not tell you whether the essay you wrote in answer to one of them would score 6 or 7.

So this page pairs them. Twenty questions sorted by what each one asks you to do, one answer written out in full, and a set of answers in the sample library that were marked so you can read a band next to the writing that earned it.

Task 2 is the longer writing task. You write at least 250 words in about 40 minutes, and it counts for twice as much as Task 1 in your writing band.

Twenty questions, sorted by instruction

The topic changes; the instruction is one of five. Reading the instruction correctly matters more than knowing the topic, because it decides the shape of your essay.

Answer the instruction you were given

Task Response is the criterion that judges this, and it is the one where essays lose the most marks for reasons that have nothing to do with English.

1. An opinion question wants one position, stated in the introduction and held to the end.
2. A discussion question wants both views given fair space, and then your own opinion stated clearly, not implied.
3. An advantages and disadvantages question wants both sides. If it adds "do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks", it also wants a verdict.
4. A problem and solution question wants both halves. An essay that spends 200 words on causes and 50 on solutions is unbalanced.
5. A two part question wants both questions answered. Missing one is the most expensive single mistake in Task 2, because half the task is absent.

Read the final sentence of the question twice before you plan. That is where the instruction lives.

A full answer to a discussion question

The question: Some people think that museums should be free to enter; others believe they should charge an entrance fee. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

Whether public museums should charge visitors is a question about who pays for culture. I will consider both positions before explaining why I favour free entry with paid exhibitions. The argument for charging is mainly practical. Museums are expensive to run, and an entrance fee is money that comes from the people who actually use the building rather than from taxpayers who may never visit. Supporters of this view add that the revenue pays for restoration, lighting and staff that a squeezed public budget will not cover. Those who want free entry answer that a museum is not a service like a swimming pool. Its collection is usually public property, assembled with public money, so charging for access sells people something they already own. The stronger version of the argument is about who is excluded: a family choosing between a museum visit and a week of groceries will not visit, and those kept out by a fee are precisely the ones a national collection exists to reach. In my view the second argument carries more weight, though it does not settle the funding problem by itself. The arrangement I find most convincing is the one several national museums already use: permanent collections open to everyone without charge, and special exhibitions ticketed. Visitors who can afford to pay generally do, since the exhibitions are the events people plan a day around. In conclusion, both positions are reasonable, and the disagreement is really about how much exclusion is acceptable in exchange for revenue. I would keep the main collection free and raise money from temporary shows, because a museum that a poorer family cannot enter has failed at the thing it was built to do.

That is 283 words, comfortably over the minimum without padding.

Why that answer works

Task Response. Both views get a full paragraph of genuine argument, which is what "discuss both views" asks for. The opinion is stated in the introduction, developed in its own paragraph and repeated in the conclusion, so a marker never has to guess what the writer thinks.

Coherence and Cohesion. One idea per paragraph, in the order the introduction promised. The cohesion comes from that structure rather than from a "firstly, secondly, moreover" chain.

Lexical Resource. The vocabulary is topic specific and used precisely: "permanent collections", "ticketed", "revenue", "excluded". Precision earns more than rarity.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy. A mix of simple, complex and conditional sentences, with relative clauses doing real work rather than being inserted for display.

Answers you can read next to a band

Reading one essay tells you less than comparing two at different levels. The sample library has full answers with a band for each criterion and the evidence behind it:

1. Prison or rehabilitation, a discussion essay.
2. Artificial intelligence and jobs, also discussion.
3. Social media and young people, which is noticeably weaker, and worth reading for exactly that reason.
4. Traffic congestion in cities, an opinion essay.
5. Working from home, advantages and disadvantages.

Those bands were produced by Bandly's scoring engine, which estimates rather than marks: no qualified examiner has checked them. Read them as a comparison between answers rather than as a certificate. Comparing the discussion essay at the top of that list with the weaker one in the middle is the fastest way to see what a band of difference looks like on the page.

How to use these twenty questions

1. Pick four questions, one of each type except the one you find easiest.
2. Plan all four in five minutes each, writing only the position and the three paragraph topics. Planning is the skill that fixes Task Response, and it is cheap to practise.
3. Write one of them in full, timed at 40 minutes.
4. Check it against the instruction, not the topic. Did you answer both parts? Is your opinion in the introduction?

When you want a second reading of the essay you wrote, paste it into Bandly: you get an estimated band for each of the four criteria and the sentences that drove it, which tells you which criterion to work on next.