The world has seen an enormous increase in flights for leisure, business and commercial purposes around the world over recent years. What do you think are the main advantages and disadvantages of such flights? Do you think flights should be taxed more?
Sample Response
In recent decades, there has been an enormous increase in flights for leisure, business, and commercial purposes worldwide. While this trend has improved global connectivity and promoted economic developmentimproved global connectivity and economic development, it has also raised serious environmental and social concerns. This essay will discuss the main advantages and disadvantages of growth in air travelair travel growth and argue that higher taxation on flights is necessary.
One of the most significant advantages of increased air travel is its contribution to global economic integrationeconomic globalization. Flights enable the rapid movementenable rapid movement of people and goods, strengthening international trade and business cooperation. Tourism, in particular, benefits greatly, as countries generate foreign-exchange earningsearn foreign income and create millions of jobs. Personally, international flights have allowed me to attend academic conferences abroad, which would have been impossible bythrough other means of transport.
Despite these benefits, the negative consequences are significantsubstantial. Aviation is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, accelerating climate change. Furthermore, the rise in leisure travel has led to over-tourism in many destinations, resulting in environmental degradation and a decline in residents’ quality of life. The expansion of airports also increases noise pollution and land-use conflictsland use issues.
In my opinion, flights should be taxed more, especially flights taken by frequent flyers and short-haul leisure flightsfrequent-flyer and short-haul leisure flights. Higher taxes would encourage travelers to reconsider unnecessary journeys and incentivisepush airlines to invest in cleaner technologies. Governments could also use the additional revenue to support environmental initiatives and improve public transport systems.
In conclusion, although the growth of air travel has clear economic and social advantages, its environmental impact cannot be ignored. Implementing higher taxes on flightshigher flight taxes would be a practical step toward making air travel more sustainable in the long term.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response addresses every part of the task directly, sustains a clear position, and develops its discussion through relevant economic, environmental, and personal examples. Its main limitation is that some supporting points remain broad rather than being explored in depth. The highest-priority improvement is to explain one or two consequences more specifically, especially how taxation would change airline or traveller behaviour.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response fully addresses the advantages, disadvantages, and taxation question with a clear position and relevant support.
Develop the causal impact of taxation more precisely rather than relying on several brief benefits.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically through clearly focused paragraphs, and cohesive devices guide the reader smoothly.
Strengthen links between the environmental drawbacks and the proposed tax so the argument forms an even tighter chain.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied, precise, and appropriately academic, with natural control of topic-specific expressions.
Use more exact language for broad phrases such as land use issues to sharpen the analysis further.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of complex sentence structures is used accurately and with strong control throughout.
Continue refining sentence rhythm by varying the placement of subordinate clauses in longer explanations.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
The world has seen an enormous increase in flights for leisure, business and commercial purposes around the world over recent years. What do you think are the main advantages and disadvantages of such flights? Do you think flights should be taxed more?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.