Opinion essays

• Make sure you have under stood the title of the essay.
• Start with a general statement. Give an outline of the essay in the introduction to help your reader follow your argument.
• Give your opinion in the first paragraph.
• In the second paragraph give your first main point together with any supporting points and examples.
• In the third paragraph give your second point together with any supporting ideas and examples (and so on).
• Use set phrases to express your opinion.
• Use linking words to join phrases and sentences.
• In the conclusion, summarise your argument and give your opinion again.

‘The differences between boys and girls are natural and are present when a child is born.’ Do you agree?

This is an issue on which people hold strong views. Some people argue that male and female brain are different and that this causes differences in behaviour. However, I believe that most of the differences are the result of the way in which we bring up children at home and at school.

At home, most parents give toy cars and guns to their sons and dolls to the daughters. In my view, this encourages boys to be aggressive and girls to be caring and sensitive.

Furthermore, at school more boys do science and maths than girls. In my opinion, this is not because boys are naturally better at these subjects but because there are more male scientists, who act as role models.

In conclusion, I believe that boys and girls are born the same, and that the way we treat them as children makes them different from each other.

What are the possible uses of space travel in the near future?

As the world’s population grows, humans will definitely need to look for other places to get resources and space to live. One hundred years from today we are very likely to have colonized space and are bound to have invented new forms of space travel. In this essay I will look at how we will go to space, and how we can live there.

The most likely way into space is by reusable spacecraft but there are other possibilities like a space elevator: a lift into space, or space balloons may well be used to lift us into orbit. Other possibilities in space are nuclear-powered spacecraft, which are very likely to be built or ships powered by solar winds another possible alternative.

But where will we be going? Already space tourism is a strong possibility with companies offering space rides. Within the next 100 years we will almost definitely have orbiting hotels for the people to stay high above the planet.

On a more serious note, it seems increasingly likely that we will need to have a base on the moon to mine minerals and provide a station to go to other places, for example NASA is already planning this for the middle of this century.

And after the moon? We know that there is water on Mars and for the long-term future of the human race, we will almost definitely need to settle on the planet and start a new colony in order to take pressure off the Earth’s ecosystems.