IELTS agree or disagree essay - band 9 guide

This is a band 9 guide to writing agree/disagree essays in IELTS Writing. Agree or disagree essay questions are very common for IELTS Writing task 2. This type of questions asks you to say whether you agree or disagree with a given statement and justify your opinion.

In this lesson you will see IELTS writing task 2 sample question + model answer and learn

how to choose an opinion for agree/disagree question
how to generate ideas
how to give a band 9 answer for agree/disagree question

IELTS agree/disagree question sample

Let’s look at an example of IELTS writing task 2:

Big salary is much more important than job satisfaction.

Do you agree or disagree?

Provide relevant examples if necessary.

This is a classic example of agree or disagree question that you may get on IELTS Writing task 2.

You can watch our video tutorial on how to tackle agree/disagree questions in IELTS Writing:

Choose your opinion & generate ideas

Agree or disagree question asks you to clearly determine whether you agree or disagree with the statement. Unlike questions that ask you to what extent do you agree or disagree, this question asks you to have a super-clear opinion. After you’ve decided your opinion, generate 2-3 supporting points for it.

For the task above you have two possible options:

You fully agree that big salary is more important than job satisfaction
You completely disagree that big salary is more important than job satisfaction

Now let’s generate supporting points for each of the opinions:

Big salary is more important

Having a job with a high salary makes people feel satisfied no matter what kind of job they do
Money is essential for survival and good living

Job satisfaction is more important

Job satisfaction gives you a sense of fulfillment
Doing what you like keeps you motivated and therefore leads to a career growth
Money can’t buy happiness and it’s more pleasant to pursue what you’re interested in

For our essay, we’ll choose the second opinion.

Band 9 answer structure

After you’ve decided whether you agree or disagree and generated your supporting points, it’s time to start writing your essay.

There are a lot of ways to structure your essay, but we’ll use a structure that has been approved by many IELTS examiners to be high-scoring and coherent.

Band-9 essay structure:

Introduction
Body paragraph 1 - the 1st reason you agree/disagree
Body paragraph 2 - the 2nd reason you agree/disagree
Conclusion

Let’s take a look at each of these sections in detail.

Introduction

Write your introduction in two sentences:

Sentence 1 - paraphrase the statement (you can use ‘it is argued/considered/thought that’ to start):
It is often argued that it is more advantageous to choose a job with high wage, even if it doesn't appeal to you at all.
Sentence 2 - say whether you agree or disagree with it and extend your opinion:
I completely disagree with this opinion and think that job satisfaction is much more important than salary.

Body paragraph 1 - the 1st reason you agree/disagree

Sentence 1 - state the first reason you agree/disagree.

This sentence should contain the main idea of the whole 1st paragraph. Use words firstly or first of all to introduce the first reason. In our case we’ll use the reason that job satisfaction gives you a sense of fulfillment:

First of all, I believe that job satisfaction gives people a sense of fulfillment that no money can guarantee.

Sentences 2-3 - explain the reason.
To explain the reason effectively, you can imagine that your examiner has no knowledge of this subject at all and you have to explain every detail:

Even if someone is earning a high salary, but feels tensed and compromises with his conscience, this person won’t enjoy his life. While pursuing one’s interests will always bring pleasure and feeling of satisfaction.
Sentence 4 - example.
It’s always good to give examples in your body paragraphs, even if you’re not asked to do it. In our case, the task asks you to provide relevant examples:
For example, a lot of famous researchers made their career choices not because of appealing wages, but because they were passionate about science.
Sentence 5 - a short summary of your ideas in this paragraph:
That’s why it’s more important to choose the kind of work that makes you happy than to look only at a high salary.

Body paragraph 2 - the 2nd reason you agree/disagree

Sentence 1 - state the second reason you agree/disagree.
This statement should contain the main idea of the whole 2nd paragraph. Use words secondly or moreover to introduce the second reason:
Secondly, doing what you like keeps you motivated and therefore leads to a career growth.
Sentences 2-3 - explain the reason (assume that your examiner doesn’t understand the topic at all):
In other words, there is a strong relation between job satisfaction and productivity. People who love their jobs can easily excel in their fields of work and achieve better results than those, who put salary on the first place.
Sentence 4 - support your idea with an example:

For instance, Henry Miller decided to leave his everyday job despite a good wage and ventured to become a writer. And after enduring years of ups and downs he became one of the most famous and well-paid authors of the twentieth century.

Sentence 5 - a short summary of your thoughts in the 2nd paragraph.
Thus, advantages of jobs that keep you satisfied outweigh the drawback of a low salary in a long-term perspective.

Conclusion

You can write the conclusion in one sentence that summarizes your opinion + 2 reasons for it:

To conclude, I strongly believe that job satisfaction is more beneficial than high salary because it makes people happy and motivated.

DO NOT write new ideas in the conclusion!

IELTS agree/disagree model answer

This is a full band-9 answer for IELTS agree or disagree question above:

It is often argued that it is more advantageous to choose a job with high wage, even if it doesn't appeal to you at all. I completely disagree with this opinion and think that job satisfaction is much more important than salary.

First of all, I believe that job satisfaction gives people a sense of fulfillment that no money can guarantee. Even if someone is earning a high salary, but feels tensed and compromises with his conscience, this person won’t enjoy his life. While pursuing one’s interests will always bring pleasure and feeling of satisfaction. For example, a lot of famous researchers made their career choices not because of appealing wages, but because they were passionate about science. That’s why it’s more important to choose the kind of work that makes you happy than to look only at a high salary.

Secondly, doing what you like keeps you motivated and therefore leads to a career growth. In other words, there is a strong relation between job satisfaction and productivity. People who love their jobs can easily excel in their fields of work and achieve better results than those, who put salary on the first place. For instance, Henry Miller decided to leave his everyday job despite a good wage and ventured to become a writer. And after enduring years of ups and downs he became one of the most famous and well-paid authors of the twentieth century. Thus, advantages of jobs that keep you satisfied outweigh the drawback of a low salary in a long-term perspective.