Advertisements are becoming more and more common in everyday life. Is it a positive or negative development?
Sample Response
Advertisements could be found anywhere in our daily lives. In my opinion, the current prevalence of advertising is a positive development for companies and a negative development for customers.
On the one hand, advertisements are a powerful tool of competition for companies. Advertising stimulates demand, expands the scale of production and in turn reduces the cost of production per unit. This not only increases profit but also creates a competitive pricing advantage for companies of advertised products. In addition, since it pays to advertise, advertised products are usually of good, if not the best quality. In other words, a company would emphasize on improving the quality of products before advertising, which also helps to create a trustworthy brand image among customers.
However, advertising is so common that it now becomes useless and a nuisance to customers. First, customers are often bombarded with advertisements of the same product, making it increasingly challenging for them to believe the advertising message if all companies claim they provide the best service or quality products. As a result, buyers now often turn to their friends or acquaintances for recommendations, which renders advertising ineffective. In addition, due to constant repetition, people have now developed an aversion to advertisements and try to get rid of them as much as possible. For example, most viewable media platforms like YouTube or Netflix are now using the removal of advertisements as the unique selling points to attract new customers, implying the audience’s hostile attitude toward advertising.
In conclusion, I believe advertising could assist companies in generating profit and improving product quality. However, due to their prevalence, advertisements are becoming less effective as customers not only struggle to believe the advertising messages but also try to avoid them as much as possible.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use present possibility Original: could Suggested revision: can Why it matters: Use the present modal because this describes a current general situation.
- 2. Improve the collocation Original: tool of competition Suggested revision: competitive tool Why it matters: This is the more natural collocation for something companies use to compete.
- 3. Clarify the relationship Original: companies of advertised products Suggested revision: companies that advertise their products Why it matters: The original phrase does not clearly express the relationship between the companies and products.
- 4. Remove the preposition Original: emphasize on improving Suggested revision: emphasize improving Why it matters: The verb “emphasize” takes a direct object rather than “on” in this structure.
- 5. Add the object Original: before advertising Suggested revision: before advertising them Why it matters: Adding the pronoun makes clear that the company advertises the products.
- 6. Use present perfect Original: it now becomes Suggested revision: it has now become Why it matters: The present perfect fits a change that has developed up to the present.
- 7. Use the right preposition Original: of Suggested revision: for Why it matters: Advertisements are normally described as being “for” a product.
- 8. Choose a precise term Original: most viewable media platforms Suggested revision: many streaming media platforms Why it matters: “Viewable media platforms” is not a natural label for services such as YouTube or Netflix.
- 9. Fix article and number Original: the unique selling points Suggested revision: a unique selling point Why it matters: The singular idea requires the indefinite article and singular noun.
- 10. Strengthen idea progression Suggested revision: Order the paragraph so the cost, pricing, quality, and brand-image points form one explicit sequence. Why it matters: The paragraph moves through several related benefits without making each causal link equally clear.
Suggested Rewrites
- could can
- tool of competition competitive tool
- companies of advertised products companies that advertise their products
- emphasize on improving emphasize improving
- before advertising before advertising them
- it now becomes it has now become
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response presents a clear, nuanced position and develops the contrasting effects on companies and consumers through a coherent, well-balanced argument. Its main limitation is that a few claims, particularly that advertised products are generally high quality, are asserted too broadly, while several collocation and agreement slips reduce precision. The highest-priority improvement is to qualify unsupported generalisations and use more natural word combinations while preserving the strong logical progression.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response directly addresses the development through a clear, nuanced judgement and develops both commercial benefits and consumer drawbacks effectively.
Qualify broad claims about product quality and support them with more convincing reasoning or a specific example.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically through well-focused paragraphs, and cohesive devices generally make relationships easy to follow.
Vary the transitions between supporting points so the progression feels less dependent on signposting phrases such as 'In addition.'
Lexical Resource
A wide and precise vocabulary supports the argument, although a few collocations such as 'emphasize on' and 'viewable media platforms' are unnatural.
Check verb patterns and common collocations to make the otherwise sophisticated word choice consistently idiomatic.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses varied complex structures with strong control, while occasional tense, agreement, and article slips remain non-impeding.
Proofread noun phrases and verb agreement, especially in sentences containing long modifiers or coordinated ideas.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Advertisements are becoming more and more common in everyday life. Is it a positive or negative development?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.