Some children spend hours every day on their smartphones. Why is this the case? Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?
Sample Response
Nowadays, some children spend hours every day on their smartphones. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, and I believe this is a negative development.
The first reason is that children can use smartphones to play games, watch videos or use social media conveniently.As a result, children can use their devices almost anywherespend more hours on their smartphones everywhere. For example, children may play smartphone games for several hours before they go to sleep. Another reason is that smartphones provide many functions for children, such as translation, calculation or searching for informationsearching for some information. It can influence many aspects of children's daily liveslife. For instance, it can help children to study a new language easily.
Although spending hours on smartphones has several benefits for children, I believe that this is a negative development. Spending too much timeSpending much time on smartphones means that they have to pay less attention to their studies. As I have mentioned, if children use smartphones too late, they are not in a good state to learnthey could not have a good condition to learn something new the following day. They may feel tired in class. As a result, they struggle to make academic progresscannot improve themselves. Furthermore, spending hours looking at screens damages children's eyes. They should reduce the time they spend on smartphones and pay more attention to communicating with familyfamilies or friends.
In conclusion, children spend hours on their smartphones because they provide various opportunities to access entertainment and are easy to use. I believe that this is a negative development.This is because using smartphones too much may affect their studies and damage their physical health.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The essay directly addresses both prompt questions with a clear opinion and relevant main ideas. However, the development of arguments is somewhat basic, and the repetitive use of simple vocabulary and basic sentence structures limits the overall quality. To raise the essay's standard, focus on deepening the explanation of key points while using a broader variety of academic vocabulary and complex grammatical structures.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
All parts of the prompt are addressed with a clear position, though some supporting points remain slightly general.
Elaborate more deeply on the long-term consequences of smartphone use rather than listing multiple brief examples.
Coherence and Cohesion
The essay has a logical overall structure with clear paragraphing, although linking words are occasionally repetitive.
Vary cohesive devices and transitions to create smoother connections between supporting sentences.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary used is clear and functional for the task, but relies on repetitive phrasing and simple word choices.
Incorporate more precise topic-specific vocabulary and synonyms to avoid repeating prompt language.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex structures with good control, though minor grammatical errors and punctuation typos occur.
Ensure proper spacing after punctuation marks and practice using advanced complex structures with correct prepositional phrasing.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some children spend hours every day on their smartphones. Why is this the case? Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.