 Chris here from IELTS Advantage and in this video we're going to look at discussion questions or discuss both of you's questions and we're going to think about how to think clearly about these questions and then how to take our thoughts and structure them into a band 7, 8 or 9 essay. So we're first going to show you how to think critically about these then we're going to look at the structure and if you wait until the end of the video I will give you a free writing course. So all discussion questions follow the same format. Some people believe this, other people believe this, discuss both views and give your opinion. So normally what happens is they give you a question where about 50% of people believe in this side and about 50% of people believe in this side. Now the problem that many students face with these questions is they can't think clearly about them and your writing will be a reflection of your thinking. If your thinking is confused then your writing will be confused. So we first have to think critically and clearly about the question. So when students see a question like this they think well I believe in freedom of speech but I also think that there's some things that should be censored and you know some people believe this and some people believe that and their thinking is very muddled and confused. So why we solve that for our students is we get them to do three things because these are the three things that the examiners are looking for. Instead of thinking why do I believe in this side or why do I believe in that side what we do is first why do other people believe view 1 and why do other people believe view 2. So what this does is it cuts through all of that confusion. You're not thinking about what you believe you're thinking about why do other people believe this. So why do other people believe view 1 and why do other people believe view 2. Just think of one reason why people believe this and why people believe that. So what this does is it forces you to think clearly about it and it also forces you to do the first two things in the question. Discuss both views. Both views means one two here and then number three your opinion and quite simply which do you agree with. Keep it very very simple don't be like well I kind of agree with this and I kind of agree with this and in this situation I do this and don't do that you don't have time to do that. Take one side that you agree with think of why you agree with it and then that's done. So let's now look at how we would take those thoughts and structure them into an essay. So we're going to start off with our introduction so we have our first point of view here and then we have our other point of view here okay. So we're going to take the point of view that we disagree with we're going to put it here in our introduction although why people believe view two. So I disagree with view two and then we're going to put in here I agree with view one because why people believe view one. So what this introduction does is it does those three things discuss both views and give your opinion here's view two. So I've discussed that why do people believe that so I just give one reason my opinion I agree and I've discussed view one so I've discussed both views and I've given my opinion. So we're going to move on to main body paragraph one we're going to take why people believe view two we're going to put it in here so why people believe view two then we'll explain why they believe it and we'll give an example. So all we're doing here is saying why do other people believe in censorship then we can move on to main body paragraph two and we're simply going to take this from the introduction so why people believe view one we're going to explain why people believe that we're going to give an example of that and then we're going to take our opinion I agree with this view so what we've done in our main body we've discussed view two we've discussed view one and we've given our opinion discuss both views and give our opinion. Then we're going to finish our essay with our conclusion so we're going to look up here summary of view two and we're going to look up here summary of view one and your opinion so if we look back at this the introduction discuss both views and gives our opinion the conclusion discusses both views and gives our opinion the main body discusses both views and gives our opinion but the main thing that this does is it takes the thinking it takes all of our thoughts out of our head and it organizes them clearly on the paper discuss both views and give your opinion discuss both views and give your opinion now you probably need more help with how to generate ideas how to write introductions how to think about other types of questions how to write main body paragraphs conclusions how to use vocabulary grammar all of those things the good news is is that we have a free course called IELTS essay builder which helps you build everything out if you want that just click below in the comments or in the description click on the link sign up and you can get instant access for free if you want more help with your IELTS preparation feel free to look at the rest of this channel or feel free to get in touch with us if you want to work with us I hope you enjoyed this video and I'll see you again soon.