Without capital punishment (the death penalty) our lives are less secure and crimes of violence increase. Capital punishment in essential to control violence in society. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Sample Response
Before talking about the essential role of death penalty, you have to think about the meaning, and the purpose, of any kind of punishment. If you consider that the purpose is to prevent the guilty from being nasty again, you can be seduced by an argumentation in favour of the suppression of capital punishment. But you have to think about another aspect of the problem: a punishment is also useful to impress people, to make them fear the law. In fact, let's take the example of a young misfit, which has grown in a violent atmosphere, influenced by older delinquents, etc... He lives in the streets, he's got no aim but to survive. This is the kind of person who could possibly kill someone for money, or even for fun... Why would he fear prison? Life would be easier for him there. In addition, in many cases, when you behave normally, you can benefit from penalty reductions. This young misfit needs to be impressed, he needs to know that the law is a frontier. When you cross it, you can lose your life. That is why capital punishment helps keeping a distance between robbery and murder. If you abolish it, you suppress the difference between these two types of crime, which are completely different. But there is also a limit to define: even if death penalty is unavoidable, it would be a crime to apply it to inadequate cases. If there is no premeditation or past facts which can justify such a punishment, it is far too strict to apply death penalty. That is why the lawmakers have to establish precisely the context in which capital punishment car be pronounced. That is the price to pay to limit violence without using excessive violence.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Add required article Original: the essential role of death penalty Suggested revision: the essential role of the death penalty Why it matters: The established singular noun phrase death penalty requires the definite article.
- 2. Remove unnecessary commas Original: the meaning, and the purpose, Suggested revision: the meaning and purpose Why it matters: The commas incorrectly separate two coordinated nouns from each other and from their complement.
- 3. Use precise crime language Original: prevent the guilty from being nasty again Suggested revision: prevent offenders from committing crimes again Why it matters: Being nasty is too vague and informal to describe reoffending.
- 4. Correct word choice Original: seduced by an argumentation Suggested revision: persuaded by an argument Why it matters: Persuaded by an argument is the natural collocation for accepting a line of reasoning.
- 5. Use precise legal term Original: suppression Suggested revision: abolition Why it matters: Abolition is the correct term for formally ending this punishment.
- 6. Use human relative pronoun Original: which Suggested revision: who Why it matters: Who, rather than which, should introduce a relative clause referring to a person.
- 7. Use formal noun Original: delinquents Suggested revision: offenders Why it matters: Offenders is a more neutral and appropriate formal term for people involved in crime.
- 8. Complete the example Original: etc... Suggested revision: and other negative influences. Why it matters: The vague abbreviation and repeated full stops leave the example unfinished.
- 9. Correct fixed preposition Original: in Suggested revision: on Why it matters: On the streets is the standard expression for living without stable housing.
- 10. Use formal phrasing Original: he's got no aim but to survive Suggested revision: he has no goal beyond survival Why it matters: The revision preserves the meaning in a more formal written register.
- 11. Specify prison conduct Original: when you behave normally Suggested revision: when prisoners behave well Why it matters: Behave normally is vague, while the revision identifies both the people and the relevant conduct.
- 12. Use legal collocation Original: penalty Suggested revision: sentence Why it matters: Sentence reduction is the standard term for shortening a period of punishment.
Suggested Rewrites
- the essential role of death penalty the essential role of the death penalty
- the meaning, and the purpose, the meaning and purpose
- prevent the guilty from being nasty again prevent offenders from committing crimes again
- seduced by an argumentation persuaded by an argument
- suppression abolition
- which who
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response develops a recognisable, qualified argument for retaining capital punishment and sustains a logical line of reasoning through a concrete hypothetical example. However, the position emerges indirectly, the single-block organisation weakens progression, and several collocations sound unnatural; the highest-priority improvement is to state the thesis early, divide the reasoning into purposeful paragraphs, and use more precise formal vocabulary.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A relevant position in favour of capital punishment is developed and qualified by the need to restrict its application, although some claims are overgeneralised.
State the degree of agreement at the outset and support the deterrence claim with more balanced reasoning rather than relying mainly on one hypothetical offender.
Coherence and Cohesion
The reasoning moves from punishment's purpose to deterrence and legal safeguards, but the absence of paragraph divisions and several loose links reduce clarity.
Separate the deterrence argument, the example, and the safeguards into distinct paragraphs with explicit logical connections.
Lexical Resource
There is enough vocabulary to discuss punishment and law in some detail, but recurrent unnatural choices reduce precision and formality.
Use established expressions such as abolition, deterrence, repeat offending, and sentence reduction in place of awkward or informal wording.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response attempts varied complex structures, but article, agreement, relative-pronoun, verb-pattern, and punctuation errors recur throughout.
Prioritise accurate clause boundaries and verb patterns, then check articles and agreement in every complex sentence.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Without capital punishment (the death penalty) our lives are less secure and crimes of violence increase. Capital punishment in essential to control violence in society. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.