Advertisements are becoming more and more common in everyday life. Is this a positive or negative development?
Sample Response
Advertising is gaining more popularity in the marketing of products or services. While advertisements are considered to be advantageous, they can have numerous negative influences.
It is unquestionable that there are several benefits of advertising. By dint o f the large-scale expansion of advertising in almost every kind of mass media and nearly all hoardings, this sector is likely to generate a diversity of employment opportunities. In other words, it provides occupations for artists, painters or copywriters in designing and preparing logos, contents or ideas for advertisements. Another advantage is that advertising may enable the messages involved in products and services to reach potential customers, followed by an increase in sales for businesses. Additionally, only thanks to advertisements, can customers be kept informed about newly-launched products. Therefore, they have more choices to make about their beloved products, contributing to the enhancement of their comforts and standard of living.
However, advertising could cause several disadvantages for customers. No sooner might companies or business exaggerate or even distort the facts related to their products for commercial purposes than the customers can experience feelings of confusion about these items, making them have troubles selecting the products to their taste. Furthermore, the facts show that the more advertising expenses increase, the higher the product price is. The reason can be that the selling price of the advertised items covers the high cost of advertisements. As a result, the advertised products can cost more than they should. Finally, when customers cannot resist the temptation of products which are advertised beyond customers’ expectations, there is every likelihood of them purchasing products which may be unnecessary. This trend could be seen as a waste of money.
In conclusion, based on the aforementioned explanations, individuals may gain both considerable benefits and drawbacks through the growing prevalence of advertisements.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Natural collocation Original: gaining more popularity Suggested revision: becoming more common Why it matters: Use a more natural expression for the increasing prevalence of advertising.
- 2. Precise noun Original: influences Suggested revision: effects Why it matters: Effects is the more precise noun for harmful consequences.
- 3. Correct malformed phrase Original: By dint o f Suggested revision: Owing to Why it matters: The phrase contains a spelling error and is awkward in this context.
- 4. Add correct preposition Original: and nearly all hoardings Suggested revision: and on nearly all billboards Why it matters: The list needs a preposition to show where advertisements appear.
- 5. Concise collocation Original: diversity Suggested revision: range Why it matters: A range of is more idiomatic with employment opportunities.
- 6. Natural employment phrase Original: provides occupations for Suggested revision: creates jobs for Why it matters: Creates jobs for expresses the employment effect more naturally.
- 7. Uncountable noun Original: contents Suggested revision: content Why it matters: Content is uncountable when referring generally to advertising material.
- 8. Concise phrasing Original: ideas for advertisements Suggested revision: advertising concepts Why it matters: Advertising concepts is a more concise professional expression.
- 9. Clarify meaning Original: messages involved in products and services Suggested revision: information about products and services Why it matters: Messages cannot naturally be involved in products, so the original phrase obscures the meaning.
- 10. Remove faulty inversion Original: only thanks to advertisements, can customers be kept informed Suggested revision: advertisements can keep customers informed Why it matters: The restrictive construction creates unnecessary and unnatural inversion.
- 11. Appropriate product term Original: beloved Suggested revision: preferred Why it matters: Beloved is too emotive for ordinary consumer choices.
- 12. Natural abstract noun Original: enhancement of their comforts Suggested revision: improvement in their comfort Why it matters: Comfort is normally uncountable when referring to general living conditions.
Suggested Rewrites
- gaining more popularity becoming more common
- influences effects
- By dint o f Owing to
- and nearly all hoardings and on nearly all billboards
- diversity range
- provides occupations for creates jobs for
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response presents a broad, relevant discussion with developed explanations of both benefits and drawbacks, and its paragraphing gives the argument an easy-to-follow shape. Its main limitation is that it never decides whether the development is positive or negative, while several strained collocations and overengineered sentence patterns reduce precision. The priority is to state and sustain a clear comparative judgment, then express supporting points in more natural, controlled language.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Both sides are relevant and developed, but the response does not give the clear positive-or-negative judgment required by the question.
State whether the drawbacks outweigh the benefits in the introduction and maintain that judgment through the conclusion.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically through clear thematic paragraphs, although some linking expressions feel mechanical or unnecessarily elaborate.
Use simpler transitions and make each paragraph's final sentence reinforce the central judgment.
Lexical Resource
The response shows a good range of topic vocabulary, but several awkward collocations and word choices reduce precision.
Replace expressions such as beloved products and enhancement of their comforts with natural, context-specific wording.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A varied range of complex structures is attempted successfully overall, though agreement, inversion, and clause-control errors recur.
Prefer accurately controlled complex sentences and review subject-verb agreement and inversion before using emphatic structures.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Advertisements are becoming more and more common in everyday life. Is this a positive or negative development?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.