Some people think that the main influence on young people's diet is advertising rather than family and friends. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
With an emerging impact of advertisements, young people's diet habit is a concerning issue as the number of overweight children is on the rise. While some people are convinced that adverts targeting the young residents to shape their preferences of food have higher influence than family and friends. I, however, disagree with this notion. To begin with, we are living in a world where adverts are all around us and their influence on young generation is more severe than adults. Advertisements, especially those targets teenagers and related to food and beverage, spend a huge amount of money to allure them to a better living standard which are, most of the cases, lies. Consequently, young people are trapped and prefer fast food than home-made menus. For instance, a recent survey conducted on college students in my city revealed that they prefer pizza, subway sandwich and burger than the foods their mums prepare at home. Further studies explained that those students have little conscious of the balanced diet and are exposed to TV and online advertisements. Having said that, family and friends have a greater influence on a teenager's eating habit. A family has a greater role in shaping a child's food intake habit and scientific studies prove that our diet habit is deeply rooted in the type of food we eat in our childhood. Thus, if a teenager has a bad eating habit, the family is to blame for that. On top of that, when a child starts making friends, he is significantly get influenced by his friends eating and drinking habit. To illustrate, based on a recent research published in the magazine 'Healthy Living', more than 70% school going teenagers try to mimic the diet habit of their friends who they spend time with. This statistics clearly reveal that our family members and friends have more influence on our choices of foods and drinks than the advertisements we are exposed to. To conclude, food habit is a significant part of our life as it defines who we become and how healthy, both physically and psychologically, we would be in the future. Advertisements, to a certain extent, have an impact on young people's diet, but family and friends have an even greater role.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Clarify opening phrase Original: With an emerging impact of advertisements Suggested revision: With the growing influence of advertising Why it matters: The revision uses the natural collocation for advertising becoming more influential.
- 2. Use plural dietary phrase Original: young people's diet habit Suggested revision: young people's dietary habits Why it matters: “Dietary habits” is the standard plural expression for patterns of eating.
- 3. Use natural expression Original: a concerning issue Suggested revision: a cause for concern Why it matters: “A cause for concern” is the conventional phrase for a worrying issue.
- 4. Add article and compare Original: their influence on young generation Suggested revision: their influence on the younger generation Why it matters: The generational group needs the definite article and the comparative adjective.
- 5. Make comparison parallel Original: more severe than adults Suggested revision: greater than their influence on adults Why it matters: The sentence must compare influence on young people with influence on adults, not influence with adults themselves.
- 6. Fix preference pattern Original: prefer fast food than Suggested revision: prefer fast food to Why it matters: The verb “prefer” takes “to”, not “than”, when comparing alternatives.
- 7. Use correct food noun Original: home-made menus Suggested revision: home-cooked meals Why it matters: A menu is a list of dishes, whereas the intended comparison is with meals prepared at home.
- 8. Use parallel plurals Original: pizza, subway sandwich and burger Suggested revision: pizzas, submarine sandwiches, and burgers Why it matters: The general list requires consistent plural nouns and standard list punctuation.
- 9. Fix comparison phrase Original: than the foods Suggested revision: to the food Why it matters: “Prefer” requires “to”, and “food” is uncountable in this general reference.
- 10. Use noun form Original: little conscious of Suggested revision: little awareness of Why it matters: The phrase needs the noun “awareness”, not the adjective “conscious”.
- 11. Use indefinite article Original: the balanced diet Suggested revision: a balanced diet Why it matters: The response refers to the general concept of a balanced diet, not a previously identified one.
- 12. Use natural collocation Original: A family has a greater role Suggested revision: The family plays a greater role Why it matters: The established collocation is “play a role”.
Suggested Rewrites
- With an emerging impact of advertisements With the growing influence of advertising
- young people's diet habit young people's dietary habits
- a concerning issue a cause for concern
- their influence on young generation their influence on the younger generation
- more severe than adults greater than their influence on adults
- prefer fast food than prefer fast food to
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response gives a clear degree of disagreement and develops both advertising and family-and-friend influences with relevant explanations and examples. Its main weakness is presentation and language control: the whole essay forms one paragraph, and frequent grammatical and collocational errors make several sentences awkward despite an understandable argument. Prioritise clear paragraph divisions and accurate comparative structures when explaining why one influence is stronger than another.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Detailed feedback by IELTS writing criterion after the annotated essay.
Task Response
A clear position is sustained and both sources of influence are developed with relevant reasoning and illustrative evidence.
Explain more precisely why long-term family habits and peer behaviour outweigh the immediate persuasive effect of advertising.
Coherence and Cohesion
The reasoning progresses coherently from advertising to family and friends, but the single-paragraph format and mechanical transitions weaken overall organisation.
Separate the introduction, advertising discussion, family-and-friends discussion, and conclusion into distinct paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
The response has sufficient vocabulary for diet, media, and social influence, but frequent inaccurate collocations and word forms reduce precision.
Use natural phrases such as eating habits, influence on the younger generation, prefer fast food to home-cooked meals, and awareness of a balanced diet.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Simple and complex structures are attempted, but fragments, agreement errors, comparative-form mistakes, and faulty relative clauses recur throughout.
Check every sentence for a complete main clause, then revise comparisons to use forms such as more influential than and prefer one thing to another.
Write this task while it is fresh
Try the same task now. It helps you remember the feedback and write better next time.
IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people think that the main influence on young people's diet is advertising rather than family and friends. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.