IELTS Writing Task 2: Problem/Solution Essay 1

 

Problem / Solution Essay 1

Some people think that children nowadays are spending an excessive amount of time watching TV or using a computer or mobile phone.

Describe some of the_problems that too much screen time can have for children, and what can be done to tackle them.

• You should spend about 40 minutes on this task to write at least 250 words. 

The topic of this essay is about the amount of time children spend using screens (TV, computer, mobile phones).

By looking at the instruction words, we can see this question also asks for problems and solutions in the plural form (although remember it is ok to focus on a single problem and solution in the exam).

Notes   Producing ideas for your answer

Problems:

• Childhood obesity
• Addiction
• Mental health issues
• Targeted junk food adverts

Solutions:

• Government incentives for active children
• Limited screen time imposed by parents
• Lessons to educate children on the dangers of too much screen time
• Restrictions on adverts at certain times

 Introduction

 There are three key things to include in your  problem/solution introduction:

•  Paraphrase the given IELTS statement and   question
•  State the problem/cause/solution
•  State what your essay will do

To successfully paraphrase the statement, you can use synonyms, change the word order or change the word class (e.g from a noun to an adjective). The tricky part is making sure you keep the meaning of the statement the same. 

IELTS Statement: 

Some people think that children nowadays are spending an excessive amount of time watching TV or using a computer or mobile phone.

Describe some of the problems that too much screen time can have for children, and what can be done to tackle them.

Paraphrased Statement:

Nowadays, governments and health experts around the world  have become increasingly  concerned about the general health of children. They are particularly worried about problems caused by too much time spent in front of a TV, computer or mobile.

You can also briefly state what your essay will do using an outline statement. Here's an example sentence:

This essay will look at these problems in more detail and propose some solutions.

Main Body

For each problem or cause you write about, you should create a topic sentence which introduces each main idea.

Here are some possible ways you could structure your topic sentences.

• One major problem connected to is..
• Another issue is that...
• A final problem is the...
• One cause of _____ is ..
• One reason for _____ is ...
• A further way to explain ________ is ...
•  One contributing factor to _________ is...

You could also use the structure that + a clause. 

Here are some examples:

One major problem connected to childrens' health is lack of exercise.

Another issue is that there are a large amount of junk food advertisements on television aimed at children.

As well as language for problems, you will also need to introduce solutions to these problems. Even though the topic of your essay will be different, you can learn language chunks/sentence starters to do this. 

Take a look at these examples:

• To deal with this problem,_________ could ....
• The way forward might be for ______ to ...
• The solution is for people to .... 
• In order to solve this issue, _____ should ......

When you provide a solution, it is a good idea to keep the actor of the sentence more general, for example:

• The government
• Schools
• Parents

You can also learn lexical chunks related to solutions to common problems. Here are just a few suggestions for the model answer:

• The government could bring in a law to ban junk food advertising.
• The government could allocate more money to healthy eating campaigns.
• Parents could set aside time in the day to do activities as a family away from screens.
• Schools could employ more physical education teachers to improve students' fitness levels.

Body Paragraph 1:

One major problem connected to childrens' health is lack of exercise: in recent years, the amount of time children spend being sedentary in front of a screen has increased drastically, and as a result, childrens' fitness levels have plummeted. This is a significant problem in the USA, for example, where children spend an increasing amount of time watching a TV screen. To try and solve this problem, governments should implement incentives for children that spend more time being active, such as giving vouchers for sport equipment or free tickets to sporting events.

Body Paragraph 2:

Another issue is that there are a large amount of junk food advertisements on television aimed at children. This means that children are being targeted to buy unhealthy junk food and processed meals which can lead to weight and Paragraph other health problems due to the high amounts of fat and sugar in the food. The answer could be for the government to ban these adverts at certain times of the day. If they did this, children would not be subjected to these unhealthy marketing tactics.

Conclusion 

Always make your conclusion easy to identify for the examiner by starting with:

• In conclusion,...
• To conclude,...
• To sum up,...
• In summary,...

Now you will need to paraphrase (again) what you have written for your introduction in your own words. Compare out model answer introduction and conclusion:

Introduction

Nowadays, governments and health experts around the world have become increasingly concerned about the general health of children. They are particularly worried about problems caused by too much time spent in front of a TV, computer or mobile. This essay will look at these problems in more detail and propose some solutions.

Conclusion

To sum up, there is no doubt that the problem of too much screen time is becoming increasingly serious for the youth of today.Unless action is taken urgently, these problems will only intensify. My opinion is that responsibility for reducing the amount of time in front of a screen lies mainly with the government, but also with the parents.

  

You can also include the following points in your conclusion (it is not necessary to

include all the points):

• State the seriousness of the problem (we've used the phrase increasingly serious)
• Suggest who you think should solve the problem (we've gone with a balance between the government and parents)
• Make suggestions about what to do in the future (we've kept this general: 'reducing the amount of screen time')
• State what might happen if nothing is done to solve the problem (again, we've kept this general to reduce the word count: 'these problems will only intensify')

Problem Solution Sample Essay

Quiz created by Veronika Bebekh with GoConqr