Today, we will be looking at an opinion essay and giving the samples a rating from an examiner’s perspective. The essays in this IELTS task 2 rating would score between a 6 and 7 in the test. Once you’ve finished reading these ratings, be sure to read our band 9 model.
Write about the following topic:
Some people believe that unpaid community service should be a compulsory part of high school programmes (for example working for a charity , improving the neighbourhood or teaching sports to younger children).
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
You should write at least 250 words.
Band 5.5 essay
Many individuals reckon that there should be a group of adults of high school, who work for welfare of society . To help the needy people of society, help the children to learn skills in sports and to upgrade the poor ones. I completely agree with the statement because it is mandatory aspect of a society to trained its young generation to serve the humanity without any regard.
Firstly, in non developed countries people are facing plethora of problems regarding hunger, education, shelter and so many basic needs . So it is demand of time to train our youth to distribute their role in the development of society, However, to make it a compulsory part is not good idea so far because students should owe it with their on desire and choose this by heart not by the enforcement of institutes. For instance, in my country many students of universities are doing this virtuous deed. They do provide food and shelter to people who are homeless, while there are numerous foundations which are providing basic needs of life to orphans and unbacked humans.
To do a charity work makes people humble and empathetic and they can feel others pain and sorrows. It is good for health as well because when an individual helps someone, it gives him a great pleasure and the impulse of enjoyment .Universities should prepare their youth to do this virtuous work because youth are the most important share of a society and to grow their community they have a big role .There should be proper teams who have specific target like one team held who should serve food for hungry people in the street , another should teach sports skills to poor children besides this they should give them education as well. Therefore , high schools should arrange a proper ceremony to encourage their students to take part in this work willingly.
In the end, I strongly appreciate this idea because we all are humans and to serve humanity is our first duty , so we have to prepare our young generation to serve mankind.
Task response
The response is long at 352 words, but if it was completed within the time limit then it wouldn’t be a problem.
Task achievement is affected because the writer often talks about university students, but the question is about high school students. Some areas are a little unclear and this effects how clear the answer is. The conclusion is also not very clear here, and needs to answer the question more directly.
Band 5
- Addresses all parts of the task although some parts may be more fully covered than others
- Presents a relevant position although the conclusions may become unclear or repetitive
- Presents relevant main ideas but some may be inadequately developed/unclear
Coherence and cohesion
Coherence is quite well controlled but referencing is a problem.
Quite a good range of transitions has been used in the essay, but in body paragraph 2, there are not enough cohesive devices (transitions and referencing.
It would be better to use the transition ‘In conclusion’ rather than ‘In the end’ as it is more appropriate and the tone is formal.
Band 6
- Arranges information and ideas coherently and there is a clear overall progression
- Uses cohesive devices effectively, but cohesion within and/or between sentences may be faulty or mechanical
- May not always use referencing clearly or appropriately
- Uses paragraphing, but not always logically
Lexical resource
There are quite a lot of lexis errors and at times the language is a bit too informal. For example, ‘reckon’ could be changed to ‘believe’ or ‘argue’.
There are points here where wording is a bit clumsy or words are not well-chosen. ‘Group of adults of high school’ sounds a bit inflexible, and ‘high school students’ would be better. ‘Grow their community’ is quite a strange phrase to use in this essay – ‘improve their community’ or ‘contribute to their community’ would be more accurate. ‘In non-developed ‘ could be ‘in developing countries’.
Students love to talk about ‘a plethora’ of something. The examiner probably sees this word all the time, knows it is memorised, and probably doesn’t like it. It means ‘an excessive or large amount’, so in this case it isn’t wrong, but students often use it incorrectly. Just avoid it, words like this on their own will not have a large effect on your vocabulary score. It also makes the examiner suspicious of your approach to learning vocabulary. As a result, they will probably start thinking a lot more about how flexible your word choices are, and the less thinking they do about that, the better!
Band 6
- Uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task
- Attempts to use less common vocabulary but with some inaccuracy
- Makes some errors in spelling and/or word formation, but they do not impede communication
Grammatical range and accuracy
Punctuation is controlled quite well but there are fairly common issues with spacing. The writer often puts a space before commas and full stops, but not after. We NEVER do this in English. The space should always come AFTER the punctuation mark and never before. This error is common in people who write from right to left in their first language (e.g. Arabic, Urdu etc.). When you write from left to right in English, make sure you move the punctuation and spaces as well!
There are some article errors and plural form errors i.e. ‘students of universities’ – university could have been used singularly here ‘university students’ – ‘a charity’ no article is required here. When writing, it is important to avoid sexist language by using male pronouns i.e. ‘him’ as this excludes women and is inappropriate nowadays. It would have been better if this was just ‘them’ as it is referring to people.
Band 6
- Uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms
- Makes some errors in grammar and punctuation but they rarely reduce communication
Band 7 essay
Nowadays, engaging in volunteering activities has brought an immense impact towards society as it is vital especially in the academic field. Many have suggested it is a productive way to aid students in developing and determining their field of interests. This essay will argue why including community services to the school curriculum is beneficial for adolescents and society, and why others think it is not.
Some people are inclined to believe that volunteering is unnecessary and insignificant for learning. Education is not solely limited to the theoretical foundations that are typically learnt from educational institutions, but practical experiences are also learnt out through serving community hospitals or teaching for physically-challenged in public libraries. In this way, they are able to acquire knowledge and professional experiences that schools do not usually offer, which maximizes their involvement to learn new skills and expand their career opportunities.
Many organizations offer volunteer opportunities including courses and training which may improve the presentation of their job applications. Employers often value not only academic qualifications, but also acquired experiences such as communication and management skills. Overall, it would be advantageous for students to allocate community services since exposure to affairs outside school may potentially set applicants apart and stand out amongst other job aspirants.
In conclusion, I completely agree that adding unpaid community services to the secondary curriculum should be mandated since it provides supplementary skills and it is essential for future job applications.
Task response
The response is slightly under length at 236 words. The main issue here for task response is that the writer has not written about about ‘why others think it is not’ which is clear in the conclusion. For that reason task response has not been achieved in the first body paragraph as the first sentences reads ‘Some people are inclined to believe that volunteering is unnecessary and insignificant for learning’ but does not expand on why they think have that opinion. That is a shame because the rest of the essay scores highly and if the writer had not made that mistake, the rating would have been higher.
Band 6
- Addresses all parts of the task although some parts may be more fully covered than others
- Presents a relevant position although the conclusions may become unclear or repetitive
- Presents relevant main ideas but some may be inadequately developed/unclear
Coherence and cohesion
Coherence is quite well controlled except for the first body paragraph which has been mentioned above. The ideas do not expand on the topic sentence given and as a result would be marked down to a 6 due to the lack of referencing. Ideally it needs a transition such as ‘However’ after the first sentence. We usually teach students to write two sentences for their conclusion just in case they get marked down for insufficient paragraphing. Had the writer not made these errors this would likely be an 8.
Band 6
- Arranges information and ideas coherently and there is a clear overall progression
- Uses cohesive devices effectively, but cohesion within and/or between sentences may be faulty or mechanical
- May not always use referencing clearly or appropriately
- Uses paragraphing, but not always logically
Lexical resource
Lexis is very well controlled with only rare errors – ‘they’ should reference ‘students’ – ‘presentation’ – more appropriate would be ‘content’ – ‘stand out’ – ‘enable them to stand out’
Band 8
- Uses a wide range of vocabulary
- Fluently and flexibly to convey precise meanings
- Skilfully uses uncommon lexical items but there may be occasional inaccuracies in word choice and collocation
- Produces rare errors in spelling and/or word formation
Grammatical range and accuracy
Grammar is controlled very well also with only very occasional errors – ‘brought an immense impact on’ – ‘had an immense impact on’ – ‘teaching for physically challenged’ – ‘for the physically challenged‘.
Band 8
- Uses a wide range of structures
- The majority of sentences are error-free
- Makes only very occasional errors or inappropriacies
That brings an end to this essay rating. You can find a band 9 model answer for this question on this page in the question bank.
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! The first candidate would have scored a straight 6. Our second candidate would have scored a 6 for task achievement and coherence, with grammar and vocabulary scoring 8 each, giving an overall score of 7.
Is there anything that surprised you about the scores for these essays? Have your say, and comment in the section below! Click here for the full public IELTS task 2 writing descriptors.
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