Some people claim that there are more disadvantages of the car than its advantages. Do you agree or disagree? Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of having a car.
Sample Response
Owning a car is a birthrightbirth-right for some people while other people try all their livestry their life-long to purchase one. Apart from these two groups, there are certain people who do not dare to even think about purchasing a car because of their difficult financial circumstancesmiserable economic conditions. However, for all those people the four-wheel car is a fancy machine with advantages and utility. Owning a car can also bring some drawbacks.
Among the advantages of owning a car, in my opinion, freedom to travelfreedom of travelling is the most important one. Someone who owns a car can plan their route, schedule and destinationplan his route, timing and destination. He won’t have to follow a public bus timetablewait for the schedule of a public bus, stand in a long queue, wait for hours for the bus to arrive, and sit onin the public bus uncomfortably. A person car gives the freedom, saves time and the owner can utilise the time while he travels. Apart from that, he can carry groceriescarry the grocery, goods and other valuables in the car at his discretion. Owning a car also offers the flexibility of visiting relatives and friends who stay far away without the hassle of using a public buswithout much hassle of a public bus. Taking a child or an old person in a public bus is quite impossible and owning a car would facilitate someone to take his kid, old relatives with him if needed. The comfort and safety of a private car can’t be achieved on public transportin a public car. In terms of expense, sometimes a personal car savessometimes personal car saves monthly expenses that would otherwise be required for a person if he travels frequently.
On the other hand, owningOn the other hand owning a car has some disadvantages as well. First of all, private cars require garage space and involve parking difficultiesrequire garage and parking hassle. Sometimes the expenses ofon hiring a driver and purchasing fuel might exceed the budget for the people who could have easily used public transportavailed public transportations for infrequent journeys. Traffic, registration renewal, taxes and legal issuesThe traffic issue, paper renewal issue, tax, police cases are sometimes too much to handle for the personal car owners. For example, if a public bus breaks downgets busted in the middle of a road, the passenger can easily leave it anda look for another one. But in this same situation, a private car owner who was riding in his car would have to take the burden of taking care of the busted car and reach to the automobile repairing centres.
In summary, though owning a car has some disadvantages, it offers many advantages as well.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The essay provides a substantial discussion of convenience, flexibility, costs, and maintenance burdens, with the advantages especially well illustrated. Its main limitation is task fulfilment: the response never states clearly whether disadvantages outweigh advantages, and the disadvantages receive less focused development. Prioritise declaring a direct position in the introduction and conclusion, then compare the relative importance of the two sides rather than only listing them.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Relevant advantages and disadvantages are discussed at length, but the required agree-or-disagree position remains implicit and the comparison is uneven.
State explicitly whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and justify that judgement by comparing their relative significance.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response has a recognisable four-part structure, although long lists, repeated references to buses, and loose development reduce overall focus.
Group related benefits and costs into two or three developed points and use each example to complete a clear explanatory progression.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is adequate for transport and ownership, but frequent unnatural collocations and word choices sometimes obscure precision.
Replace phrases such as ‘try their life-long’, ‘parking hassle’, ‘public transportations’, and ‘gets busted’ with accurate formal alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mixture of simple and complex sentences communicates the main ideas, though errors recur in articles, possessives, verb patterns, and coordination.
Proofread noun phrases and verb complements carefully, especially forms such as ‘a person’s car’, ‘enable someone to’, and ‘reach a repair centre’.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people claim that there are more disadvantages of the car than its advantages. Do you agree or disagree? Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of having a car.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.