Back to IELTS - Response - Developing An IdeaBackConcept

Sprint 5.6: Depth Beats A Better Idea

Learner chooses the idea they can develop over the idea they find most interesting, and stops spending the essay on an argument they cannot finish.

7 micro-lessons

Preview · progress not saved — Chapter 1 is free

e2861603...

Which Would You Write?

Six pairs. Three times the original idea wins.

1 / 6

Topic: remote work. A: it reduces commuting. B: it redistributes economic activity away from city centres in ways that reshape local tax bases. Which would you write?

c7f04acc...

The Descriptor Does Not Reward Originality

Read the criterion, apply the test, and what this is not.

Read the criterion

presents, extends and supports main ideas

Nothing about interesting. Nothing about unusual. Nothing about sophisticated.

An ordinary idea developed fully outscores an original one left hanging.

1 / 3

339f8eb1...

Reach and Finish

Two bridges across one gap.

Two bridges over the same ravine. The near one is a plain timber span, complete, with a figure walking across it. The far one is an elaborate stone arch that stops in mid-air, with a figure standing at its broken end.

Click to zoom

One of these gets you across.

e0d48d5f...

Can Explain, or Cannot

Ten claims. Sophistication does not predict the bucket.

Sort each item into the correct category

Mechanism statable in two sentences

Cannot be explained that fast — change the claim

Unassigned

Remote work costs juniors the training they absorbed by sitting near someone.

Remote work redistributes economic activity in ways that reshape local tax bases.

Tourism hollows out residential centres by turning flats into lettings.

Free transport alters the marginal utility calculation underlying modal choice.

Uniforms remove one daily argument from every household with a teenager.

Education systems reproduce existing social hierarchies through institutional selection.

Fares block the lowest-paid from jobs across the city.

Urban policy has undergone a paradigm shift towards densification.

A parent on a shift until six cannot collect a child at three.

Technology has fundamentally transformed the nature of human communication.

e3601e75...

Two Sentences or Change the Idea

Eight claims. Five get a mechanism, three get replaced.

For each claim, either write the mechanism in two sentences, or write the ordinary claim you would use instead. Three of these cannot be explained quickly.

0 of 8 blanks filled

Remote work costs juniors the training they absorbed by proximity. → Mechanism:
Remote work reshapes local tax bases. →
Tourism hollows out residential centres. → Mechanism:
Free transport alters the marginal utility calculation underlying modal choice. →
Uniforms remove one daily argument from households with teenagers. → Mechanism:
Education reproduces social hierarchies through institutional selection. →
Fares block the lowest-paid from jobs across the city. → Mechanism:
School hours do not fit the working day of shift workers. → Mechanism:

c1d4b320...

The Idea You Can Finish

Your most interesting claim, the one you would use, then develop the second.

Write your most interesting claim, then the one you would actually use, then develop the second.

Topic: whether governments should fund the arts.

Box 1: the most interesting claim you can think of on this topic. Box 2: the claim you would actually use in an exam. Box 3: develop the one in box 2 — claim, mechanism, example.

These may be the same claim. If they are, say so and develop it.

Your most interesting claim*

Whatever you actually find interesting.

The claim you would use*

May be the same one.

The second claim, developed*

One paragraph.

af43505e...

What Did You Give Up

You had a better idea. What would have made it work?

Learners can ask follow-up questions and keep the thread going.

You had a more interesting idea and did not use it.

What would you have needed to know to make it work?

One sentence.

just now

← previousSprint 5.5: Developing Under Time next →Sprint 5.7: Course Review — One Full Res...