‫Hello, everyone, in this video, we're going to be looking at a very common question type and one
‫that we haven't looked at really in depth so far, and that is and agree or disagree, question time,
‫where you must give your opinion in your essay.
‫So this is going to be a question around the topic of city living, a really common topic in the AIDS
‫test, as well as for the writing section of its site.
‫Let's take a look at our checklist now.
‫I'm not going to go through all the organizational features and language features, the red and green,
‫because I'm sure you've been using this previously.
‫But once again, I'll say it's a really useful checklist for when I'm writing and practicing writing
‫my alt essay and of course, the report for task one.
‫So do you have a go at using it?
‫Let's take a look at our question.
‫People who live in busy cities are in many ways at a disadvantage to those who live in rural areas,
‫to what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
‫So we can see from the question that it doesn't necessarily state?
‫I'd definitely say give your opinion, but it's asking you to agree or disagree.
‫And that in itself means you're going to have to give your opinion.
‫If you think back to our structure, our master sheet that told you at the paragraphs for each question,
‫type in an agree or disagree essay.
‫Of course, you've got your introduction paragraph and you're two supporting paragraphs with the conclusion,
‫the supporting paragraphs example.
‫Paragraph one will be to agree or disagree, only choose one for the whole essay.
‫And the second supporting paragraph again will be to agree or disagree, giving opinion and repeat your
‫opinion in the conclusion as well as you'll see me using this structure in this upcoming lesson.
‫So don't worry if you didn't quite catch that.
‫And now it's time for us to write our quick plan for this question.
‫OK, so as always, let's begin with supporting paragraph one and taking a quick look back at the question
‫again, people who live in busy cities are at a disadvantage to those who live in rural areas.
‫Now, I don't know if you know, originally I am from a rural area, a small village in northern England.
‫I actually do not agree with this statement.
‫I think people who live in busy cities in many ways are at a disadvantage.
‫So I'm going to disagree with this statement throughout the whole essay.
‫I'm not going to discuss both agree and disagree.
‫I'm going to pick my standpoint, my perspective, and I'm going to either agree or disagree only what
‫and I'm going to disagree.
‫I believe people who live in cities are actually at an advantage.
‫And I suppose there's a few reasons for that.
‫I think the first thing that I would discuss is the economic reasons, more jobs and opportunities for
‫earning money.
‫Now, I think I will probably do to disagree point in paragraph one and probably just one in paragraph
‫to remembering that it's really important.
‫I don't write too much in this essay because the time frames are quite tight.
‫So we don't want to be writing 350, 400 words.
‫Let's keep it to between 200 and 300 words.
‫So economic reasons, more jobs and opportunities for earning money.
‫I'm I'm just thinking off the top of my head some more reasons we could say, what about health care,
‫health care and hospitals?
‫Numerous.
‫There are many of them, OK, economic reasons, more jobs and opportunities for earning money and of
‫as well health care and hospitals than numerous.
‫So that my two reasons I'm going to disagree and say people who live in cities are at an advantage.
‫And in supporting paragraph one, my two reasons are money, economic reasons and health care.
‫Going into my second supporting paragraph, I'm also going to discuss social life and meeting friends
‫because it can be quite difficult living in rural areas to have an exciting social life where you can
‫go to restaurants, easily meet friends and do exciting things together.
‫And so I'm going to discuss this in supporting paragraph two and do remember throughout, I will be
‫giving lots of examples to discuss and explore my ideas.
‫OK, and as we are having to give our opinion in the conclusion, I will also quickly write something
‫here.
‫So I'll put o4 opinion.
‫And of course, I disagree.
‫People in cities have more opportunities in general.
‫So, of course, I'm going to flesh that out, explore and expand on these ideas when I begin writing.
‫But this plan, it took maybe a minute and a half to write.
‫And really importantly, it gives me all the basis for the ideas that I'll be writing about in my essay,
‫even if I don't look at the plan again, I've kind of thought about some of the ideas that I'm going
‫to be writing about.
‫So I feel a lot more prepared than if I hadn't written a plan.
‫So that's really important.
‫I definitely recommend you write a plan.
‫OK, so let's move on to take a look at beginning our writing.
‫OK, so let's begin and we're going to start, of course, with our three sentence introduction paraphrase
‫plan and outline.
‫So I need to paraphrase the question here.
‫People who live in busy cities are in many ways a disadvantage to those who live in rural areas, busy
‫cities.
‫I can definitely think of synonyms for that.
‫And let's start with many people who live that's pretty much using the same language.
‫But I'll change a few things.
‫You don't have to change everything.
‫Remember, just paraphrase some key phrases.
‫Many people who live in both sleighing cities, Metropolis, Merlots, think of another word for that
‫in busy towns and urban areas.
‫I like that many people who live in bustling towns and urban areas are at a disadvantage to those who
‫live in smaller villages and countryside areas.
‫So I have quite simply paraphrased a few key phrases using my understanding of synonyms.
‫Many people who live in bustling towns and urban areas are at a disadvantage to those who live in small
‫villages and countryside areas very much similar to the question.
‫So that's my first introduction sentence, the paraphrased introduction.
‫Again, this signals to the examiner that you have a good understanding of, firstly, what the question
‫is asking and your ability to use synonyms.
‫So straight away, the examiner is thinking, OK, this aout student is confident.
‫And now we just need to move on to our plan sentence, which quite simply is just saying what type of
‫question this is in this essay.
‫I will either agree or disagree with this statement.
‫And now I need to outline using firstly and secondly what I will write in my support paragraphs.
‫So I think looking back to my plan, I was going to talk about economic and healthcare being positives.
‫So firstly, I will discuss the benefits of finding work and health care whilst living in a city.
‫And secondly, so we've got these opener's that I really just recommend you use in every task to report.
‫And secondly, I was going to discuss the social the social benefits of living in a city.
‫And secondly, I will discuss I have used here so let's say explore.
‫I will explore the positives of the social and the social envelope.
‫And secondly, I will explore the positives of the social aspects of living in a city.
‫OK, so let's take a very quick read back.
‫Many people who live in bustling towns and urban areas are at a disadvantage to those who live in small
‫villages and countryside areas.
‫In this essay, I will either disagree or disagree with the statement.
‫Firstly, I will discuss the benefits of finding work and health care whilst living in a city.
‫And secondly, I will explore the positives of this social aspects of living in a city.
‫I'm going to change this.
‫This isn't perfect.
‫This is a rough introduction, but it would score quite highly of the social aspects of living in an
‫urban area.
‫Again, I don't want to be repeating vocabulary too often.
‫I want to show the examiner that I can use a range of vocabulary and structures.
‫OK, so let's move on to my first supports paragraph.
‫And that is to discuss the economic positives, the ability to find work more easier probably than you
‫would do in the countryside.
‫So in my opinion, one of the great advantages to living in a city is the economic economic benefits
‫that it can bring.
‫For example, it is true that many large and wealthy businesses.
‫And cooperation, so I'm being more specific in my example and giving extra detail, corporations operate
‫in urban areas in large towns and cities.
‫So I've given an example.
‫I've stated my point here.
‫So the big advantages is the economic benefits.
‫And here I'm going to set an example.
‫So large and wealthy businesses and corporations operate in large towns and cities.
‫For this reason, people often find that they can gain employment a lot easier, a lot easier than they
‫would if they lived in the countryside.
‫OK, so I've made my first point.
‫I've given an example and I've tried to give extra detail to explain my thinking.
‫And next, I was going to talk about health care.
‫Furthermore, so I'm using these sentence openers and but I, of course, need to make sure that I'm
‫using my punctuation.
‫Furthermore, it is also true that in a metropolis, in a metropolitan area, metropolitan area, people
‫have more access to health care and quality hospitals, hospitals.
‫So furthermore, it is also true that in a metropolitan area, people have more access to health care
‫and quality hospitals.
‫Often I'm just I just want to add an extra bit of detail just to show the examiner that I can really
‫describe and discuss what I'm thinking.
‫So people have more access to health care and quality hospitals.
‫Furthermore, in addition to this, in addition to this, the waiting hours are often much shorter as
‫they are better staffed.
‫OK, so just adding a little detail at the end, just to give a bit more of an example in regards to
‫my point of health care, in addition to this, the waiting hours are often much shorter as they are
‫better staffed.
‫That may be true.
‫That might not be true in some city hospitals.
‫They do have more staff, but I'm not 100 percent sure the waiting hours are shorter.
‫However, this is a test of my English fluency, not whether I know the ins and outs of the health care
‫system.
‫OK, so that is my first paragraph complete.
‫Let's move on to supporting paragraph to.
‫And I was going to discuss this social benefits, meeting friends and restaurants, I was going to discuss
‫that in my second paragraph.
‫So I need a good sentence opener.
‫Also, I do feel that people who reside instead of live in cities benefit from a more social and active
‫lifestyle.
‫So I'm saying that they are more social, more active, able to meet friends a bit easier.
‫Also, I do feel that people who reside in cities benefit from a more social and active lifestyle.
‫I'm going to discuss it, discuss living in villages and sort of talk from my experiences when living
‫in small, isolated places.
‫It is definitely more difficult to meet friends and visit restaurants or bars in big cities and towns
‫due to transport and availability of venues.
‫It is quite easy to socialize, to socialize and unwind.
‫And so we've got this socialize, unwind kind of topic, specific vocabulary, quite native sounding
‫phrase to relax.
‫So I'm using definite topic, specific vocabulary, isolated and suburban.
‫How are you suburban yet?
‫Maybe I can that in metropolitan.
‫Definitely topic specific.
‫I wonder if there's something I can add just to increase this supporting paragraph somewhat.
‫It is quite easy to socialize and unwind.
‫It may also be that due to being able to meet friends more frequently, city dwellers, that's quite
‫a native sounding phrase.
‫City dwellers might also lead happier lives.
‫So I just wanted to add a bit more detail again.
‫So I've put in this sentence saying that maybe city dwellers are happier because they can meet friends
‫more often.
‫And I think that we have to quite nicely detailed, supporting paragraphs.
‫It's now time to move on to our conclusion where I will give my opinion once more.
‫OK, so as I am giving my opinion, the conclusion for an agree or disagree essay will have two sentences.
‫The first sentence will paraphrase my main ideas.
‫So not paraphrasing the question like in the introduction, I will paraphrase myself very quickly.
‫Mention health care and socializing and economic reasons, and the second sentence will reaffirm and
‫restate my opinion.
‫Let's begin with, in conclusion, a great way to start our conclusion.
‫In conclusion, the benefits of living in a city in a city are numerous from sorry, apologies for my
‫spelling are numerous, from nightlife, friends, health care and better employment prospects.
‫That's a great native colloquial sounding phrase for you that.
‫So that's my first sentence and the conclusion I now need to give my opinion once more.
‫Therefore, I believe that people who live in city areas are actually at an advantage to those who do
‫not.
‫OK, so that's quite simply reaffirming have restating my opinion on the question.
‫Do you agree or disagree?
‫People in cities are at a disadvantage?
‫Well, therefore, I believe that people who live in cities are actually at an advantage to those who
‫do not.
‫Let's have a quick read through this essay.
‫Many people who live in bustling towns and urban areas are at a disadvantage to those who live in small
‫villages and countryside areas.
‫In this essay, I will either agree or disagree with this statement.
‫Firstly, I will discuss the benefits of finding work and health care whilst living in a city.
‫And secondly, I will explore the positives, the social aspects of living in an urban area.
‫In my opinion, one of the great advantages to living in a city is the economic benefits that it can
‫bring.
‫For example, it is true that many large and wealthy businesses and corporations operate in large towns
‫and cities.
‫I just noticed I repeated a large in the same sentences try not to repeat vocabulary too often.
‫For this reason, people often find that they can gain employment a lot easier than they would if they
‫lived in the countryside.
‫Furthermore, it is also true that in a metropolitan area, people have more access to health care and
‫quality hospitals.
‫In addition to this, the waiting hours are often much shorter as they are better staffed.
‫Also, I do feel that people who reside in cities benefit from a more social and active lifestyle when
‫living in small, isolated places.
‫It is definitely more difficult to meet friends and visit restaurants or bars in big cities and towns
‫due to transport and availability of venues.
‫It is quite easy to socialize and unwind.
‫It may also be that due to being able to meet friends more frequently, city dwellers might also lead
‫happier lives.
‫In conclusion, the benefits of living in a city are numerous from nightlife, friends, health care
‫and better employment prospects.
‫Therefore, I believe that people who live in city areas are actually at an advantage to those who do
‫not.
‫Okay, so that is my full task to S.A report and it is for an agree or disagree essay.
‫And as you can see, it's packed full of my opinion.
‫I'll not go through all the features checklist.
‫I'm confident.
‫I've included lots of it.
‫Importantly, again, I can see that I've got those four paragraphs.
‫When the examiner sees this, even before they start reading, they will recognize that you have an
‫introduction to supporting paragraphs and a conclusion paragraph.
‫So they will straightaway be thinking this student has studied and is following a formula to organize
‫their writing.
‫So it gives really it gives a good message to the examiner.
‫If you use this structure that I taught you all the best and I hope to upload some more video lessons
‫for you soon.