Without capital punishment (the death penalty) our lives are less secure and crimes of violence increase. Capital punishment is essential to control violence in society. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Sample Response
Different countries have different constitutions and they follow different rules and regulations to deal with crimes. Some nations are quite rigid in dealing with some particular crimes and they follow law and order like tooth for a tooth and eye for an eye. Some people claim that death penalty ought to be given to criminals to protect our society from savagery. To a certain extent, I agree with this opinion.
To begin with, capital punishment is a good way to prevent heinous crimes like drug dealing, murder and rape in a society. Knowledge of such stern sentence can generate fear among offenders. Thus, people will think twice before committing a crime even if the situation compels them to do so. As a result, the number of wrongful activities will dramatically decline. In addition to this, a sociopath killer or a rapist destroys a whole family and the government should punish such perpetrators to prevent innocent people. To maintain the equilibrium in a society, penalties for inexcusable offences should have the same severity of the crime, sometimes death penalty. However, death penalty stands against the human rights, according to many. All the living creatures have the right to live and should get a second chance - criminals or not. Societies use the legislative system to prosecute a criminal and the verdict cannot be hundred percent fair always. To prevent any wrongdoing from the law itself, the criminal can be given solitary confinement and long prison sentences. In conclusion, even though capital punishment help reduce crime rates in our society and it is required to prevent harsh offences, the death penalty is a violation of human rights. So, I feel that capital punishments should be given in heinous crimes after being absolutely sure.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use uncountable noun Original: crimes Suggested revision: crime Why it matters: 'Crime' is normally uncountable when referring to criminal activity in general.
- 2. Remove redundant qualifier Original: some particular crimes Suggested revision: particular crimes Why it matters: 'Particular' already narrows the reference, so 'some' is unnecessary.
- 3. Use accurate legal phrase Original: follow law and order like Suggested revision: follow retributive principles such as Why it matters: 'Law and order' cannot be followed as an example in the way the sentence currently suggests.
- 4. Complete parallel idiom Original: tooth for a tooth and eye for an eye Suggested revision: a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye Why it matters: Both parallel noun phrases require their indefinite articles.
- 5. Add definite article Original: death penalty ought Suggested revision: the death penalty ought Why it matters: The established punishment is referred to with the definite article.
- 6. Use legal collocation Original: given to criminals Suggested revision: imposed on criminals Why it matters: A legal penalty is 'imposed on' a person rather than 'given to' them.
- 7. Use precise term Original: protect our society from savagery Suggested revision: protect society from violent crime Why it matters: 'Violent crime' identifies the concrete harm more precisely than 'savagery'.
- 8. Use formal example marker Original: crimes like drug dealing Suggested revision: crimes such as drug dealing Why it matters: 'Such as' is the more formal marker for examples in an academic essay.
- 9. Add article Original: such stern sentence Suggested revision: such a stern sentence Why it matters: The singular count noun 'sentence' requires an article after 'such'.
- 10. Use direct deterrence verb Original: generate fear among offenders Suggested revision: deter potential offenders Why it matters: This verb states the intended preventive effect directly and concisely.
- 11. Use precise crime term Original: wrongful activities Suggested revision: criminal activity Why it matters: The paragraph concerns crime specifically, whereas 'wrongful activities' is vague.
- 12. Correct adjective form Original: sociopath Suggested revision: sociopathic Why it matters: The adjective 'sociopathic' is required to modify 'killer'.
Suggested Rewrites
- crimes crime
- some particular crimes particular crimes
- follow law and order like follow retributive principles such as
- tooth for a tooth and eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye
- death penalty ought the death penalty ought
- given to criminals imposed on criminals
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response takes a qualified position and considers both deterrence and human-rights concerns, using relevant ideas such as judicial error and alternative imprisonment. Its main limitation is that several claims remain asserted rather than convincingly supported, while the body and conclusion are compressed into one long paragraph. The highest-priority improvement is to separate the opposing perspectives clearly and explain the conditions under which capital punishment could be justified.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear partial-agreement position is supported by relevant arguments about deterrence, proportional punishment, human rights, and judicial error, although some reasoning is general.
Explain with greater precision why deterrence would work and define the exceptional circumstances that make execution acceptable despite the risk of error.
Coherence and Cohesion
The ideas move logically from support for capital punishment to objections and a qualified conclusion, but most of the discussion is presented in one dense paragraph.
Separate the case for deterrence, the human-rights counterargument, and the final qualification into distinct paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a reasonably broad range of crime-and-justice vocabulary, but recurrent collocational errors reduce precision and naturalness.
Use accurate combinations such as 'protect innocent people,' 'proportionate to the crime,' and 'impose the death penalty'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A variety of sentence structures conveys the argument clearly overall, though errors with articles, agreement, and word order occur repeatedly.
Check article use with 'the death penalty' and correct agreement in clauses such as 'capital punishment helps reduce crime'.
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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 is 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.