Today, we will be looking at an essay on elderly care and giving it a rating from an examiner’s perspective. The essay in this IELTS task 2 rating would score 4.5 in the test.
In Britain, when someone gets old, they often go to live in a home with other old people where there are nurses to look after them. Sometimes the government has to pay for this care.
Who do you think should pay for this care, the government, or the family?
You should write at least 250 words.
A visible change of any living organism is getting older. Child, youth, adult and elder are some of the stages in our life. Child and elderly stages are dependent stages compared to other two stages. For both of these situations, a human being needs other’s support.
While we were children, our parents were there for our supportive role. When the parents became older, definitely their children need to be the supportive role for their parents. This is the role we carry among human beings vice versa. If the parents live with their children only parents will feel safer, attached to family and sharing of love. Unfortunately, many of them attending to works, they do not have time to look after their children neither their parents. In this case, elders could be sending to some a common place where other elders are staying. But payment cannot be made by the government.
Since it is the responsibility of their family, definitely family needs to pay for caring of their parents. They may not have enough time to take care of their parents. Since the government has employed special people for that, at least those elders’ parents need to be paid by their family.
For an example, many of the parents were private sector employees and they did not have a monthly pension scheme. But they have only Employee provident fund and employee trust funds. It has been used by the children of the parents in plantation sector of Sri Lanka. Finally, children will neither look after their parents nor elderly parents do not have own money in hand. That is, all advantages utilised from elders. When they become a stage of the dependent, families are trying to escape from their responsibilities. This is a kind of selfish. Paid by the government should be stopped and families should be paid for them.
Especially the children are responsible for looking after the parents; they should definitely pay for the parents and not the government.
Answer analysis
Task achievement
The introduction is only vaguely related to the topic and is not very clear. It does not clearly outline what the writer is going to discuss in the essay.
Although a position has been given in some of the paragraphs ‘But payment cannot be made by the government’ – ‘Paid by the government should be stopped and families should be paid for them.’ – ‘they should definitely pay for the parents and not the government’- the development is not very clear.
There is also quite a bit of irrelevant detail included in the response. For example, talking about children is totally off-topic in this essay. The writer has repeated this idea several times, and it limits task achievement to a maximum of band 5.
Band 5
- Addresses the task only partially; the format may be inappropriate in places
- Expresses a position but the development is not always clear and there may be no conclusions drawn
- Presents some main ideas but these are limited and not sufficiently developed; there may be irrelevant detail
Coherence and cohesion
The main error here is that there is no clear conclusion given so this will limit the score to a 5 for cohesion straight away. Ideas and information are given but the is no clear progression in the response, particularly in paragraph 3. This is very confusing for the reader.
The paragraphing is a little confusing as well. The writer has used ‘For example’ which should be connected to the previous paragraph, but they have chosen to use a separate one.
Band 4
- Presents information and ideas but these are not arranged coherently and there is no clear progression in the response
- Uses some basic cohesive devices but these may be inaccurate or repetitive
- May not write in paragraphs or their use may be confusing
Lexical resource
Firstly, the writer uses ‘we’ few times which is inappropriate for an academic essay. There are noticeable errors in word formation – ‘This is a kind of selfish’ – selfishness; ‘Paid by the government should be stopped’ – Payments by the…
Some of the word choices are quite good i.e. ‘private sector employees’ – ‘a monthly pension scheme’. However, in the context of the paragraph, they are not easy to understand and cause some difficulty for the reader. It looks as though the writer has been memorising words and does not know how to use them appropriately, so it is only minimally adequate for the task. Examples include: ‘This is the role we carry among human beings vice versa’ – ‘many of them attending to works’. There is also some repetition of vocabulary i.e. ‘role’ – ‘definitely’.
Some of the wordings are unclear or unusual and show limits in the writer’s vocabulary. One example of this is ‘Special people’ as a synonym for nurses. Specialists / medical specialists / specialist staff etc. would be better.
Band 5
- Uses a limited range of vocabulary, but this is minimally adequate for the task
- May make noticeable errors in spelling and/or word formation that may cause some difficulty
for the reader
Grammatical range and accuracy
The writer does use occasional complex structures but the majority are simple sentences so the range is limited. Punctuation is not too bad and would probably lift this response from a band 4 for grammar.
There are a lot of errors, and some of them are confusing. Just a few examples are:
- families are trying to escape from their responsibilities (When they become a stage of the dependent, families try to…)
- This is a kind of selfish (This is selfish)
- Paid by the government should be stopped and families should be paid for them (families should pay for them)
Band 5
- Uses only a limited range of structures
- Attempts complex sentences but these tend to be less accurate than simple sentences
- May make frequent grammatical errors and punctuation may be faulty; errors can cause some difficulty for the reader
That brings an end to this essay rating. If you are preparing for your IELTS test and want to find out a bit more about task 2, check out our post giving five tips to improve your IELTS writing task 2! Our candidate would have scored a 5 for task achievement and 4 for coherence, with grammar and vocabulary scoring 5 each, giving an overall score of 4.5. Is there anything that surprised you about this essay’s score? Have your say, and comment in the section below! Click here for the full public IELTS task 2 writing descriptors.
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