Writing

IELTS Writing Topics 2026: Task 2 Essay Questions With Model Paragraphs (Part 1)

Part 1 of an ongoing series: eight real Task 2 essay questions from the current exam themes, each tagged by question type and paired with a model paragraph, not a full essay to memorise.

Nishant Pokharel

9 September 2026•8 min read

Task 2 questions repeat across a fairly small set of themes: education, the environment, technology, health, crime, work, society and family, government spending, and a handful of others. What actually varies is the question type: opinion, discussion, problem-solution, advantage-disadvantage, and two-part. Misreading the type is a Task Response problem before you've written a sentence, because each one expects a different essay shape.

This is Part 1 of a series working through real Task 2 questions by theme. Eight questions below, one from each of eight current themes, tagged by type. Each comes with a model paragraph rather than a full memorised essay, because a full canned essay doesn't transfer to a question you haven't seen before, and Task 2 prompts are reworded constantly. What transfers is the shape: how you open a paragraph, how you develop one idea instead of listing three, how you connect sentences without leaning on "firstly / also / moreover."

Education: Opinion

"University students should pay the full cost of their own education. To what extent do you agree or disagree?"

Paragraph excerpt: "Requiring students to cover the full cost of their education would likely narrow access rather than improve it. Many capable students come from families without the savings to fund a multi-year degree upfront, and shifting that entire burden onto them risks turning university into a filter for wealth rather than ability. A partial-contribution model, where the state covers a share and graduates repay the rest once they're earning, protects access while still asking students to invest in their own outcome."

Scores well on Task Response: it takes one side (against full self-funding), develops a single mechanism (access narrowing to wealth) instead of listing three unrelated reasons, and offers a specific alternative instead of a vague "there should be balance."

Environment: Discussion

"Some believe environmental problems are too big for individuals to solve, while others think individuals cannot do anything at all without governments. Discuss both views and give your opinion."

Paragraph excerpt: "There's some truth to the first view: an individual switching to a reusable bottle does little against industrial emissions on its own. But the second view understates how individual choices aggregate and shape policy. Consumer demand for lower-emission products has pushed manufacturers to change supply chains faster than regulation alone has managed in some sectors, which suggests individual action and government policy work as a pair rather than one making the other pointless."

"The second view understates" and "which suggests" are what carry Coherence and Cohesion here, moving the argument forward through reference rather than a string of "moreover / furthermore" connectors doing the linking for it.

Technology: Problem and solution

"As technology develops, more people work and study from home. What problems does this cause, and how can they be solved?"

Paragraph excerpt: "One consistent problem is isolation: without the incidental conversations an office or classroom provides, people working or studying from home report weaker informal support networks, which affects both wellbeing and how quickly newcomers learn unwritten norms. Scheduled video check-ins help, but they replace only the planned interactions, not the spontaneous ones. A more effective fix is deliberately building shared physical time back in, a weekly in-person meetup or co-working day, rather than trying to simulate spontaneity through more software."

Scores well on Lexical Resource: "incidental conversations," "informal support networks," "unwritten norms" are precise, topic-specific collocations rather than the generic "communication problems" a band 6 script would reach for.

Work: Advantage and disadvantage

"More and more people are working past the traditional retirement age. Do the advantages of this trend outweigh the disadvantages?"

Paragraph excerpt: "The clearest advantage is continuity of expertise: an experienced employee working a few extra years can mentor successors in a way no training manual replicates, and the organisation loses less institutional knowledge in the handover. The disadvantage, reduced turnover slowing promotion for younger staff, is real but narrower in scope, affecting career timelines rather than organisational capability. On balance, the knowledge-retention benefit outweighs the promotion delay, though it depends heavily on whether a company actively uses older employees to mentor rather than simply keeping them in the same role."

Scores well on Task Response: it directly answers "do the advantages outweigh," which this exact phrasing requires, rather than describing both sides and leaving the balance unresolved.

Society and family: Two-part

"Traditional skills and ways of life are disappearing. Why is this happening, and is it a positive or a negative development?"

Paragraph excerpt: "This is happening largely because economic incentives have shifted: skills tied to subsistence farming or traditional craft rarely pay as well as urban, technology-based work, so younger generations move away from them by necessity, not indifference. Whether that's positive or negative depends on what's being lost. Practical skills with a modern equivalent (weaving replaced by manufacturing) represent a fairly neutral trade-off, but the loss of oral histories and languages tied to those traditions is close to irreversible, which tips the overall development toward negative."

The parenthetical aside and the subordinate clause ("which tips the overall development toward negative") are what add range here, real structural variety without any clause collapsing under its own weight, which is what Grammatical Range and Accuracy actually rewards.

Health: Problem and solution

"Modern lifestyles mean many people do not get enough exercise. What are the causes, and what can governments and individuals do to solve this?"

Paragraph excerpt: "A major cause is the shift toward desk-based work combined with commuting by car rather than on foot, which removes the incidental movement earlier generations got by default. Governments can address the built-environment side of this directly, safer cycling infrastructure and walkable urban planning do more long-term than awareness campaigns alone. Individually, the most sustainable fix isn't a gym membership most people abandon within months, but building movement into an existing routine, walking meetings, cycling part of a commute, since habits attached to something already happening tend to stick."

Scores well on Coherence and Cohesion: the paragraph moves from cause to government-level solution to individual-level solution in one continuous line, each sentence picking up the previous one's thread instead of listing three disconnected tips.

Crime: Opinion

"The main purpose of prison should be to punish offenders, not to rehabilitate them. To what extent do you agree or disagree?"

Paragraph excerpt: "I disagree with this framing, mainly because punishment alone does little to change the outcome that actually matters: whether someone reoffends. Countries with strong rehabilitation programmes, vocational training and mental health support alongside incarceration, tend to show lower repeat-offence rates than systems built primarily around punitive sentencing. Punishment may satisfy a sense of justice, but if the goal is a safer society rather than a symbolic one, rehabilitation earns a larger share of the purpose than punishment alone."

Scores well on Task Response: it holds one clear position (disagree) from the first sentence and never drifts into "both have value," which this type of prompt specifically penalises when a firm stance is available.

Government: Discussion

"Some people think governments should spend money on public services such as health and education, while others believe spending on the arts and sport is just as important. Discuss both views and give your opinion."

Paragraph excerpt: "The case for prioritising health and education is straightforward: both are close to prerequisites for a functioning society, and underfunding either has direct, measurable costs. The arts-and-sport argument is weaker as a funding priority but not baseless, participation in sport correlates with public health outcomes, which arguably makes it an extension of the health argument rather than a separate one. My view is that health and education should take precedence, with arts and sport funded only once those baselines are genuinely met, not treated as an equal, parallel priority."

Scores well on Lexical Resource: "prerequisites," "measurable costs," "an extension of the health argument" show the writer paraphrasing and connecting ideas with precise, un-memorised vocabulary rather than repeating "important" for every point.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Task 2 essay themes should I actually prepare for?

Roughly ten cover most of what appears: education, environment, technology, health, crime, work, society and family, globalisation, government spending, and media. This post covers eight of those; Part 2 covers the rest.

Should I memorise the model paragraphs above?

No, memorise the shape, not the sentence. A model answer for "university students paying full costs" won't transfer cleanly to a differently worded prompt on the same theme, and the version that changes least between prompts is your ability to take one position, develop one idea properly, and connect sentences without a wall of linking words.

How do I tell which of the five question types a prompt is?

Read the instruction line, not just the topic. "To what extent do you agree or disagree" is Opinion. "Discuss both views and give your opinion" is Discussion. "What problems does this cause and how can they be solved" is Problem-solution. "Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages" is Advantage-disadvantage. Two distinct questions in one prompt (why, and is it positive or negative) is Two-part.

Is a shorter, accurate paragraph better than a longer, ambitious one?

Usually, yes. A shorter sentence that's fully correct outscores a longer compound-complex sentence that collapses halfway through, since Grammatical Range and Accuracy scores both range and accuracy together, not range alone.

Get feedback on your own paragraph, not just the model

Reading a model paragraph tells you what good looks like. It doesn't tell you what's actually wrong with what you wrote. SmoothMock's writing practice test grades your response against these same four criteria and tags each error to a specific pattern, an article-agreement slip, a missing overview, a run-on sentence, so you're fixing the pattern instead of guessing at it.

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