minutes on this task It is said that "Not everything that is learned is contained in books". Compare and contrast knowledge gained from experience with knowledge gained from books. In your opinion, which source is more important? Why?
Sample Response
Books are our best companions and source of knowledge from our infant time till the end of life. Our learning begins by reading books. Books open new horizons in front of us. But sometimes the hardest and most important lessons we learn in life come from our participation in different situations. The things we learn in real-life can never be learned through anything else. We can't learn everything from books and in my opinion, the knowledge we gather from our experience is far more important, than anything else.
Of course, learning from books in a formal educational institution and learning from books for someone's own interest are highly important. Books are like open doors. Whenever someone read books, it helps the readers to broaden their power of imagination, to introduce them new ideas. In facts, books are a fine collection of ideas, experiences, imaginations and innovations of writers for the readers. But everyone's life is quite different than others. So, we sometimes face a whole new situation. I believe, most important lessons cannot be taught. It must be faced and learned all by ourselves. The experiences we gather from our daily life help us to rectify our future act. We learn from watching a situation even if we are not the part of it. We even learn from the stories we hear from our friends or family members about some strange situations that have occurred.
No one can teach us how to live alone, how to share our feelings, how to create self-respects. Those all must be learned from our experiences. Experiencing our own triumphs and disasters is really the only way to learn how to deal with life. Books, teachers, parents give us guidelines and our experiences give the perfection of it.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Match plural complement Original: companions and source of knowledge Suggested revision: companions and sources of knowledge Why it matters: The coordinated plural description requires 'sources' to agree with 'Books'.
- 2. Use natural time phrase Original: from our infant time Suggested revision: from infancy Why it matters: 'From infancy' is the idiomatic expression for this life stage.
- 3. Use concise phrasing Original: till the end of life Suggested revision: throughout our lives Why it matters: The replacement conveys the lifelong duration more naturally.
- 4. Correct the idiom Original: open new horizons in front of us Suggested revision: open new horizons for us Why it matters: The established expression uses 'for us' rather than 'in front of us'.
- 5. Use formal contrast Original: But sometimes Suggested revision: However, sometimes Why it matters: 'However' marks the contrast with the preceding claims more formally.
- 6. Remove incorrect hyphen Original: in real-life Suggested revision: in real life Why it matters: The noun phrase 'real life' is not hyphenated after a preposition.
- 7. Remove comparison comma Original: important, than Suggested revision: important than Why it matters: A comma must not separate the comparative adjective from 'than'.
- 8. Use idiomatic purpose Original: for someone's own interest Suggested revision: out of personal interest Why it matters: The replacement naturally expresses self-motivated reading.
- 9. Use fixed expression Original: In facts Suggested revision: In fact Why it matters: The discourse marker uses the singular noun 'fact'.
- 10. Use countable concepts Original: imaginations and innovations Suggested revision: imaginative works and innovations Why it matters: 'Imaginations' does not naturally denote the creative material collected in books.
- 11. Remove intrusive comma Original: I believe, most Suggested revision: I believe most Why it matters: No comma should separate 'believe' from its content clause.
- 12. Match plural antecedent Original: It must be faced Suggested revision: They must be faced Why it matters: The pronoun must agree with the plural antecedent 'lessons'.
Suggested Rewrites
- companions and source of knowledge companions and sources of knowledge
- from our infant time from infancy
- till the end of life throughout our lives
- open new horizons in front of us open new horizons for us
- But sometimes However, sometimes
- in real-life in real life
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response states a clear preference for experiential knowledge and recognizes the value of books, with a generally logical progression and relevant examples from daily life. Its main limitation is that the comparison remains broad and repetitive, while recurring grammar and collocation problems weaken precision; the highest-priority improvement is to build one direct, well-explained comparison between the two sources and then edit for agreement, articles, pronouns, and natural word combinations.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Detailed feedback by IELTS writing criterion after the annotated essay.
Task Response
The response addresses both sources and gives a consistent preference with reasons, though the contrast is sometimes generalized and unevenly developed.
Use one concrete situation to compare exactly what books provide with what experience adds, then explain why the latter is more important.
Coherence and Cohesion
The central position is easy to follow and ideas progress broadly logically, but paragraph focus is loose and several points repeat the same claim.
Organize separate comparison paragraphs around distinct functions of book knowledge and experiential knowledge before drawing them together in a conclusion.
Lexical Resource
There is adequate vocabulary for the topic and some effective phrasing, but frequent awkward collocations and word-form choices reduce accuracy.
Revise expressions such as infant time, rectify our future act, and create self-respects into standard, context-appropriate English.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The writer attempts varied structures and meaning remains clear, but errors in agreement, articles, pronoun reference, and sentence construction recur throughout.
Check every clause for a matching subject and verb, then correct article use and singular-plural consistency before finalizing the essay.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
minutes on this task It is said that "Not everything that is learned is contained in books". Compare and contrast knowledge gained from experience with knowledge gained from books. In your opinion, which source is more important? Why?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.