🦩 IELTS Writing Task 2: idea development 🦩

Idea development is what many IELTS writers struggle with. Today, I'll share a student's paragraph with valid but underdeveloped ideas and some notes on possible development.

Topic: "Many doctors recommend that older people exercise regularly, but most patients do not follow an exercise routine. Why do you think this happens? How can older people be encouraged to exercise regularly?"

🦩 Student's original paragraph:

There are two main reasons why older adults do not exercise. Firstly, many feel that they have to be quite careful about the way they spend their money. In view of the cost of living crisis, they are not ready to pay for various sports programs as they may have other more urgent items to invest into. Secondly, those over 60 are often quite apprehensive about exercising regularly which happens due to their fear of getting injured and exacerbating their typically fragile state of health.

🦩 Possible development:

1️⃣ The first reason is on the abstract side, so it's true for people of all ages. Some ideas to develop this argument further:

- Older people no longer have an income as they are retired. Their pensions are low.
- We can give the reader a feeling of how expensive a gym membership might seem. We could say something like "A gym membership typically costs a quarter (a third? a half?) of an average pension in Russia." (I actually don't know how expensive gym memberships are.)
- We see this in the paragraph: "other more urgent items to invest into." We absolutely need to add - items such as what?

These idea not only expand the argument, but also make it specifically true for older people.

2️⃣ The second reason is valid, but it's only one sentence long! Some ideas to develop the argument further:

- Why are they afraid to get injured? Maybe because they associate exercising with rigorous exercising (such as?). Maybe they are also afraid that if they exercise in a group, the activities will be targeted at younger people and will therefore be rigorous.
- Why are might they exacerbate their health? Maybe the recovery from rigorous exercising or from injuries will be long and painful.

These are just some ideas to explore the topic in depth. More ideas? Share in the comments.