IELTS Task 2 discussion essay band 7.5 sample (both views + opinion)

Most candidates looking for an IELTS discussion essay band 7 sample are stuck at 6.5 for one reason: both views are handled competently and the opinion is not visible where a marker looks for it. The essay below scores 7 for Task Response, 8 for Coherence and Cohesion, 7 for Lexical Resource and 8 for Grammatical Range and Accuracy — a 7.5 — and the section after it maps every sentence in which the position can be seen.

That map is the point of this page. A discussion essay rarely fails on argument quality; it fails because Task Response cannot find a position that was developed rather than announced. So the sample is followed by a downgrade demo: three sentence edits, nothing else touched, and the same essay reads as band 6 for Task Response.

Four anchors. Two of them are topic sentences, which is what makes a position read as developed.

The prompt and the essay

The prompt is written for this article rather than taken from a past paper, and follows the standard discuss-both-views-and-give-your-own-opinion wording:

Some people believe university education should be funded by the state and free for all students. Others believe students should pay the full cost of their own degrees. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

The response below is 298 words, also written for this article.

Whether higher education should be paid for out of taxation or by the students who receive it is now argued in almost every country that has expanded its university system. My own position is that the cost should be shared, with the state carrying the larger part, because the benefits of a graduate population are not confined to the graduate.

The stronger of the two cases, to my mind, rests on access. Where fees are high, the decision to study is effectively made by families rather than by applicants, and capable students from low-income households withdraw before they even apply. A country that loses those applicants loses the doctors and engineers it will need two decades later, and that is a public loss rather than a private one. Removing tuition at the point of entry removes the filter.

The opposing view is reasonable too, and it turns on who benefits. A graduate earns considerably more across a working life than a school leaver does, so asking taxpayers who never attended university to fund that advantage is hard to defend. Full public funding also tends to spread a fixed budget thinly, because institutions are then financed per student rather than per outcome, and teaching suffers. On this reading a fee is simply a transfer of cost to the person who gains most from it.

I find the access argument the stronger of the two, though not strong enough to justify a system in which graduates contribute nothing at all. The arrangement I would defend is a heavily subsidised fee repaid only once the graduate's income passes a threshold, so that nobody is deterred at eighteen and no non-graduate subsidises a high earner. That keeps the public benefit and the private one in proportion, which neither position above manages alone.

That is comfortably over the minimum: IELTS states you "must write at least 250 words and will be penalised if your answer is too short", and that you "should spend no more than 40 minutes on this task" (ielts.org).

Scored: 7 / 8 / 7 / 8 → 7.5

The arithmetic first, because it is the part nobody shows. The four criteria are averaged: 7 + 8 + 7 + 8 = 30, and 30 ÷ 4 = 7.5. Half bands are reachable inside a single task; the four scores do not have to match.

Task Response — 7. The public descriptor at band 7 reads: "The main parts of the prompt are appropriately addressed. A clear and developed position is presented." Both views are addressed, and the position is stated in the introduction, restated as an evaluation in the third paragraph and refined into a mechanism in the fourth — developed, not merely announced. It is not an 8, where "The prompt is appropriately and sufficiently addressed. A clear and well-developed position is presented in response to the question/s": view B gets less space than view A, and the detail carrying the position — the income threshold — arrives only at the end.

Coherence and Cohesion — 8. Band 8 reads: "The message can be followed with ease. Information and ideas are logically sequenced, and cohesion is well managed." Each paragraph has one job, the progression is view A → view B → adjudication, and the links are carried by referencing ("that filter", "on this reading", "neither position above") rather than connectives bolted to sentence fronts.

Lexical Resource — 7. Range is sufficient and mostly precise, and collocation is handled well ("spread a fixed budget thinly", "transfer of cost", "deterred at eighteen"). What holds it at 7 is that the vocabulary is accurate rather than resourceful: the choices are the ones an educated writer reaches for first, with little sign of less common items used under deliberate control.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — 8. Band 8 reads: "A wide range of structures is flexibly and accurately used. The majority of sentences are error-free." Non-defining relative clauses, a cleft ("that is a public loss"), reduced clauses and a conditional all appear, and no sentence carries an error that would slow a reader.

Where your opinion is visible

Task Response is judged on whether a position is present and developed, so it pays to know which sentences do that work. Here there are four, at four predictable anchors.

Anchor	Sentence	What it contributes
Introduction, thesis	"My own position is that the cost should be shared, with the state carrying the larger part…"	States the position and its ratio before either view is discussed
Body 1, topic sentence	"The stronger of the two cases, to my mind, rests on access."	Signals which view will be favoured, so the paragraph reads as argument, not summary
Body 2, topic sentence	"The opposing view is reasonable too, and it turns on who benefits."	Concedes without switching sides; view B gets real treatment, the position stays stable
Conclusion	"The arrangement I would defend is a heavily subsidised fee repaid only once the graduate's income passes a threshold…"	Develops the position into a mechanism instead of repeating the thesis

Two of those four are topic sentences. That is what separates an essay whose position is developed from one whose position is merely stated: the stance is working at the top of the body paragraphs, where a reader scanning for structure meets it.

One misreading to clear up. Older band 7 wording asked for a position maintained "throughout the response", and that phrase is still quoted widely; the current public descriptor says "A clear and developed position is presented." Four anchors is not a rule handed down by IELTS — it is the cheapest way to make a position both clear and developed.

The downgrade demo: three sentences that drop this to band 6

Nothing below changes the argument, the vocabulary or the grammar. Three sentences change, and only in where the opinion sits.

Three edits, no change to grammar or vocabulary. The position now exists only in the last paragraph.

Edit 1 — delete the thesis. The introduction now ends at "…that has expanded its university system", so the essay opens with a topic rather than a stance.

Edit 2 — neutralise the body 2 topic sentence. "The opposing view is reasonable too, and it turns on who benefits" becomes "The other view is that students should pay for their own degrees." Accurate, and stance-free.

Edit 3 — move the opinion to the conclusion. Body 1 now opens "One case rests on access", so the position first appears in the final paragraph.

The result is still competent writing: two views, balanced development, clean grammar. But against the band 6 line — "The main parts of the prompt are addressed (though some may be more fully covered than others)" — the discussion half is now covered far more fully than the opinion half, which occupies two sentences at the end. A position surfacing only in the conclusion is hard to read as "clear and developed": there is nothing in the body for it to have been developed through.

Note what did not change: CC, LR and GRA are untouched. This is why polishing vocabulary rarely moves a stuck 6.5. The same mechanism run in the other direction is shown change by change in the problem-solution band 7 sample.

Discuss both views ≠ discuss both views and give your opinion

The trap has a name — partial response — and it is a task-reading failure rather than a writing failure. The prompt has two parts, and candidates who discuss both views fluently while leaving the opinion implicit have answered one of them.

IDP's official guidance is blunt: "Read the question prompt carefully to see how many parts are in the question", and "Cover all parts of the question." It also warns that memorised answers "will not address the task appropriately and you will lose marks" — relevant here, because pre-learned discussion frameworks are exactly the material that covers two views without committing to one. IELTS Liz puts the balance in one line worth keeping: "the discussion is not more important than the opinion. All parts of the instructions are important to fulfil."

You will also see the claim that delaying your opinion to the conclusion caps Task Response at a fixed number. The observation is sound; the number is not, since it comes from the pre-2023 descriptors.

Two consequences. Read the instruction line before planning, not after — "discuss both views" and "discuss both views and give your own opinion" are different tasks. And if your position is a middle one, state it as a position: "both sides have merit" is not a stance; "the cost should be shared, with the state carrying the larger part" is.

FAQ

Do I have to give my own opinion in a discuss-both-views question?

If the instruction line asks for it, yes — it is one of the parts of the prompt. If it only says "discuss both views", an opinion is optional and not penalised.

Can my opinion be a compromise?

Yes — the sample above is one. What matters is that the compromise is specific enough to function as a position. A middle stance stated as a mechanism reads as a position; "it depends" does not.

Where should the opinion go?

Introduction and conclusion at minimum, ideally at the top of one body paragraph too. The descriptors do not prescribe placement, so this is efficiency, not a rule.

Does a 7.5 in Task 2 mean 7.5 for Writing?

No. Your Writing band comes from Task 1 and Task 2 together, with Task 2 weighted more heavily, so a 7.5 here can still be pulled down by a weaker Task 1. The half-band gap is dissected in band 7 vs band 7.5.

Is 298 words long enough?

Yes. The requirement is at least 250 words, with a penalty for answers that are too short. Longer is not automatically better; the extra words here do argumentative work.

Related reading

• Band 7 vs band 7.5 IELTS essay — which two criterion boxes a half band is made of
• Problem-solution essay IELTS band 7 example — the same Task Response trap on a different question type
• IELTS Task 2 introductions scored line by line — where the first of the four anchors goes
• Band 6 to band 7: the same essay rewritten — every edit tagged to the criterion it moved

Official task instructions are on ielts.org.