First of all, here is a list of common topics that appear in the IELTS writing test.
- Advertising
- Animals
- Art
- Business
- Children
- Communication
- Crime and Punishment
- Culture
- Education
- Entertainment
- Communication
- Crime and Punishment
- Culture
- Education
- Entertainment
- Environment
- Ethics
- Ethics
- Family
- Food and diet
- Government
- Global issues
- Government
- Global issues
- Health
- Housing
- Language
- Housing
- Language
- Media
- Money
- Reading
- Science
- Society
- Space
- Sports and Exercise
- Reading
- Science
- Society
- Space
- Sports and Exercise
- Technology
- Tourism and Travel
- Tourism and Travel
- Transport
- Work
That was a big list, so let’s clarify what I mean by “topic” and how these actually affect your exam preparation and performance in the next sections.
- Work
That was a big list, so let’s clarify what I mean by “topic” and how these actually affect your exam preparation and performance in the next sections.
HOW DO TOPICS WORK FOR IELTS WRITING?
In that huge list that I provided above, you can see 30 common IELTS writing topics. These are not the only topics that could appear in your next exam, but these are so common and so wide in scope, that I would be surprised if they didn’t.
However, it is worth remembering that these topics are not mutually exclusive. That means each topic does not have to appear by itself. For example, I have included “reading” as a topic because there are many possible questions about reading (and books) in IELTS writing. These are rarely just about books, though. They tend to crossover into other topics such as childhood, society, or education. For example, you see questions like this:
The main purpose of public libraries is to provide books, and they should not waste their limited resources and space on providing expensive hi-tech media such as computer software, videos, and DVDs.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Here, the question is about books/reading but it is also clearly an issue of money and society. It is about what sort of policy is right for people and their community.
When you are learning about topics for IELTS, you need to be aware of this issue. A question about reading is not just about reading. Sure, in the speaking test, you may be asked about what sort of books you like to read… but for IELTS writing, it’s going to be more complicated, like the question above. As such, we can see that IELTS topics tend to overlap.
