Studies suggest that children, these days, spend more time watching TV than they did in the past and spend less on doing active or creative things. Why do you think this is the case? What measures can be taken to tackle this issue?
Sample Response
Nowadays, television programmes have become the main sources of entertainment and leisure time activity for many children, unlike in the past. In fact, most children are addicted to TV programmes and have no time for meaningful or creative activities. The availability of numerous channels and streaming services, easy access to satellite TV channels, and the lack of proper guidelines for children have risen this phenomenon. Luckily there are ways to address this issue effectively and parents have to take the major role here.
To begin with the causes for children's addiction to TV programmes, it can be said that the availability of various channels, including satellite TV channels, with diverse means of entertainment attracts children to watch TV all day long. Consequently, youngsters become addicted to watching TV and are not interested in innovative, creative and sports activities. For example, both my nephews, who are around 6 and 8 years old years, spend their time watching TV rather than taking traditional hobbies or playing outdoors in the evening.
Again, bygone are the days when a small percentage of households in a country owned a television. On the contrary, TVs are ubiquitous, and they are connected to satellite TV channels and streaming services, giving young children access to virtually endless programmes. The easy access to TV channels has also been sparked by the lack of guidelines by parents who are too busy to spend quality time with their children and use TV programmes to keep their children busy.
Effective measures are there to curb this problem. First, parents need to spend more quality time with their children and get engaged in outdoor activities as well as good hobbies to deter children from watching TV all day long and have meaningful leisure activities. Parents should allow children to watch suitable TV programmes for a certain period of time each day, if required watch those programmes together, and set examples for their children by doing creative activities. Consequently, children will be more interested in spending time with their parents and in the process, break their addiction to watching TV.
To conclude, children spend much time watching TV because of the easy access to numerous channels and the lack of zeals and guidelines from parents to do useful things. To address this issue, children must be motivated, guided and accompanied by parents to do useful activities rather than watching just TV.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Correct causal verb Original: risen Suggested revision: driven Why it matters: The factors have caused the phenomenon; they have not physically “risen” it.
- 2. Add introductory comma Original: Luckily there Suggested revision: Luckily, there Why it matters: A comma should follow the introductory sentence adverb “Luckily”.
- 3. Correct role collocation Original: take the major role Suggested revision: play the main role Why it matters: English uses “play a role,” not “take a role,” in this context.
- 4. Correct cause preposition Original: for Suggested revision: of Why it matters: Use “causes of” to identify the reasons behind a condition.
- 5. Use natural phrase Original: diverse means of entertainment Suggested revision: diverse entertainment options Why it matters: “Entertainment options” is the natural term for different programme choices.
- 6. Correct verb pattern Original: attracts Suggested revision: encourages Why it matters: “Encourage someone to do something” fits this structure more naturally than “attract”.
- 7. Use parallel activity terms Original: innovative, creative and sports activities Suggested revision: innovative, creative, and sporting activities Why it matters: “Sporting” functions as the adjective parallel to “innovative” and “creative”.
- 8. Remove repeated noun Original: years old years Suggested revision: years old Why it matters: The second occurrence of “years” is redundant.
- 9. Correct hobby collocation Original: taking Suggested revision: pursuing Why it matters: People pursue or take up hobbies; they do not “take” hobbies in this structure.
- 10. Use natural transition Original: Again, bygone are the days Suggested revision: Gone are the days Why it matters: “Gone are the days” is the correct fixed expression, and “Again” does not show the intended progression.
- 11. Correct logical connector Original: On the contrary Suggested revision: Moreover Why it matters: The sentence adds supporting information rather than contradicting the preceding claim.
- 12. Fix causal direction Original: sparked Suggested revision: facilitated Why it matters: Parental inattention facilitates access; access is not sparked by the absence of guidelines.
Suggested Rewrites
- risen driven
- Luckily there Luckily, there
- take the major role play the main role
- for of
- diverse means of entertainment diverse entertainment options
- attracts encourages
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response fully addresses causes and remedies, with its strongest feature being the detailed, practical role assigned to parents in limiting viewing and promoting shared activities. The main limitation is repetition: access to channels and parental guidance recur across several paragraphs, while a number of awkward word choices and grammatical slips reduce polish. The priority is to consolidate overlapping points and edit collocations and sentence structure for greater precision.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Both questions are answered with relevant causes, a personal example, and practical parental measures that are generally well developed.
Explain more directly how each proposed measure counters a specific cause instead of presenting several overlapping parental actions.
Coherence and Cohesion
The cause-to-solution structure is clear and paragraphs are purposeful, although repeated points about access and parental guidance make progression less economical.
Combine the two overlapping cause paragraphs and give each remaining paragraph one distinct controlling idea.
Lexical Resource
The response shows a good range of topic-specific vocabulary, but inaccurate collocations and repeated references to television reduce precision.
Replace phrases such as "have risen this phenomenon," "taking traditional hobbies," and "lack of zeals" with natural academic wording.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex structures are used with generally clear meaning, but recurring errors in agreement, articles, coordination, and word form weaken control.
Proofread long sentences for complete clause structure and agreement, and remove duplicated forms such as "8 years old years."
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Studies suggest that children, these days, spend more time watching TV than they did in the past and spend less on doing active or creative things. Why do you think this is the case? What measures can be taken to tackle this issue?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.