The IELTS writing question pool rotates in seasons: the same questions resurface across sittings and countries for weeks before retiring. That means the questions test-takers reported this month are meaningfully more likely to appear in front of you than a random question from an old book. This lesson shows what the current season is asking — and how to prepare question-specific ideas instead of generic ones.
What test-takers are reporting right now
Our recall wall collects post-exam reports and corroborates them: when independent test-takers report the same question, the count rises — and a corroborated question is a question still in active rotation. Here is the current writing picture (full, updated versions live at this season's writing questions):
Task 2 — Academic, corroborated this season:
| Reported | Question theme |
|---|---|
| July, by 2 test-takers | Mobile phone use is as antisocial as smoking; since smoking is banned in certain places, should phones be banned in the same way? (agree/disagree) |
| June, by 2 (and again by a third) | Is it more important to keep and maintain old buildings than to replace them with new ones? (agree/disagree) |
| June, by 2 | Should supermarkets and manufacturers reduce packaging, or should customers refuse over-packaged goods? (discuss both views) |
| May, by 2 | Should children learn to be competitive, or is cooperation more important? (discuss both views) — re-reported in April sittings too |
| May | Should children be taught at school how to become good parents? (agree/disagree) |
| April–May | Should governments invest in public transport rather than building new roads? (agree/disagree) — reported in two separate sittings |
Task 1 — Academic: bar charts dominate this season — people living alone by age group across two years (June, 2 reports), urban vs rural population with future projections (June, 2 reports), transport modes across three cities (May, 2 reports) — plus line graphs of public transport use and tourist numbers over time.
General Training: an invitation letter to a family celebration (April, 2 reports), a letter to a neighbour about their dog, and Task 2 essays on parks and sports facilities versus shopping malls, and on spending money on family celebrations.
Read the pool, not the questions
Look at that Task 2 list again as an examiner would. Six questions, but only about four underlying themes:
- Urban life and development — old buildings, parks vs malls, public transport vs roads
- Environment and responsibility — packaging (state vs business vs consumer)
- Raising children — competition vs cooperation, teaching parenting at school
- Technology and social behaviour — the phone/smoking analogy
This is how seasonal preparation actually works. You do not predict the exact question — you prepare your own position, two extendable ideas, and one personal example per live theme. When the packaging question appears, you are not improvising about the environment for the first time; you are deploying ideas you already own, adapted to the exact wording in front of you.
Question-specific beats generic — a worked contrast
Generic preparation gives you: "The environment is very important. Governments should take action." That fits every environment question and scores on none — Task Response rewards ideas developed for this question.
Question-specific preparation for the packaging question looks like:
Position: businesses carry more responsibility than consumers, because they design the packaging before any customer chooses. Idea 1: consumers cannot compare packaging honestly — the plastic is decided at the factory. Example: the fruit at my local supermarket comes pre-wrapped; the unpackaged option does not exist. Idea 2: regulation shifts costs to those who profit. Consequence: when producers pay for waste, lighter packaging becomes a business advantage.
Ten minutes of thinking, written down, and this question — reported twice in June — is banked. The mobile-phone question rewards the same treatment: the interesting move is examining the analogy itself (secondhand smoke harms health; a phone conversation merely annoys — so is a ban proportionate?). That thought cannot be memorised from a template, but it can absolutely be prepared.
Your drill (15 minutes)
- Open this season's writing questions and read the current Task 2 list end to end. Sort them into themes as above — the clusters will be obvious.
- Pick the theme you would least like to meet in the exam. That one, not your favourite.
- Build its bank entry: position in one sentence, two ideas, one example from your own life or city, one consequence. Fifteen minutes, paper, no essay.
- Bookmark the recall wall and repeat this for one new theme after each weekly update — the pool shifts, and your bank should shift with it. If you want to see full band-calibrated sample answers to these same reported questions, our sister project IELTSWritingPrep maintains them — but build the idea bank first; the next two lessons explain why that order matters.