Some people think that cities are the best places to live. Others prefer to live in a rural area. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of living in the city to living in the countryside.
Sample Response
These days, many people are quite concerned about choosing the right place to live their own life. In this essay, I will look at the pros and cons, aspects of living in large and crowded town compared to the countryside and draw a reasoned conclusion based on my ideas. One of the most significant benefits of settling in a city is health care. Usually, there is well-functioning health care system available to citizens of the town such as hospital and clinics, with many specialised doctors and healthcare professionals. For example, in the city, it is very convenient to find physicians, dentists and nurses. In contrast, often habitants of the rural area have to travel all the way to the city to visit the professionals in the city. As a result, people who live in the countryside suffer from the lack of health care laboratories, hospitals and chamber of professional doctors which are not close to them and is one of the reasons people prefer to stay closer to city centres. Furthermore, a city offers better educational, recreational and employment facilities which are quite tough to find in a rural area. However, the crime is the biggest challenge that inhabitants of a crowded city have to face. For example, murder, rape, theft, motor vehicle offence, drugs abuse, firearms & offensive weapon cases are more common in city areas than in a countryside. Even with criminal justice system and punishment by state law in cities, the rate of these heinous crimes is much higher there than any other part of the country such as villages and rural area. The rate of the crime is much less in a countryside than a city due to the less population and economic factors of that area. As a result, the people who live in a countryside are much protected against violation of their rights. In conclusion, both large towns and urban areas have some conveniences and drawbacks for its citizens. Living location should ultimately be chosen depending on an individual's base on their professional job. For example, farmer ideally will choose the rural area and on the other hand, IT professional will prefer to be close to city centre.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Correct number agreement Original: life Suggested revision: lives Why it matters: The plural subject people requires the plural noun lives.
- 2. Repair phrase structure Original: pros and cons, aspects of Suggested revision: pros and cons of Why it matters: Pros and cons should connect directly to the activity being compared.
- 3. Add article and punctuation Original: large and crowded town Suggested revision: a large, crowded town Why it matters: The singular countable noun needs an article, and coordinate adjectives take a comma.
- 4. Add the missing article Original: well-functioning health care system Suggested revision: a well-functioning healthcare system Why it matters: The singular countable noun system requires an article here.
- 5. Use consistent plurals Original: hospital Suggested revision: hospitals Why it matters: Both items are general examples, so both nouns should be plural.
- 6. Use the correct noun Original: habitants of the rural area Suggested revision: inhabitants of rural areas Why it matters: Inhabitants is the correct word for people who live in a place.
- 7. Avoid vague repetition Original: visit the professionals in the city Suggested revision: visit healthcare professionals Why it matters: The revision identifies the professionals clearly and avoids repeating city.
- 8. Use an academic phrase Original: quite tough to find Suggested revision: difficult to access Why it matters: Difficult to access is more precise and suitably formal for facilities.
- 9. Remove unnecessary article Original: the crime is the biggest Suggested revision: crime is the biggest Why it matters: Crime is used generally here and does not take the definite article.
- 10. Use the plural form Original: offence Suggested revision: offences Why it matters: The item names a general category of crimes and should be plural.
- 11. Use formal crime terms Original: firearms & offensive weapon cases Suggested revision: firearm and offensive-weapon offences Why it matters: The revised terms are grammatically consistent and more appropriate for formal prose.
- 12. Correct the article Original: a Suggested revision: the Why it matters: Countryside conventionally takes the definite article.
Suggested Rewrites
- life lives
- pros and cons, aspects of pros and cons of
- large and crowded town a large, crowded town
- well-functioning health care system a well-functioning healthcare system
- hospital hospitals
- habitants of the rural area inhabitants of rural areas
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response compares city and countryside living through relevant contrasts in healthcare, education, employment, recreation, and crime, and it ends with a sensible occupation-based judgement. Its main limitation is uneven development: city healthcare and crime receive extensive attention, while rural benefits and disadvantages are treated more narrowly; frequent language errors also reduce precision. Prioritise balanced comparative paragraphs and careful editing of articles, agreement, and collocations.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The task is addressed with a range of relevant urban advantages and disadvantages and some rural comparisons, though coverage is unevenly developed.
Develop rural advantages and drawbacks as fully as the city points, using direct comparisons beyond healthcare and crime.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress recognisably from urban benefits to crime and a concluding comparison, but one-block presentation and repetition weaken organisation.
Use separate paragraphs for city advantages, city disadvantages and rural contrasts, and the final comparative judgement.
Lexical Resource
The response uses sufficient topic vocabulary and some less common terms, but recurring inaccurate word choices and collocations reduce precision.
Use natural phrases such as residents, healthcare facilities, doctors' surgeries, lower population density, criminal offences, and rural areas.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The writer attempts varied complex structures, but frequent errors in articles, agreement, plural forms, and clause construction remain noticeable.
Check every long sentence for subject-verb agreement and correct noun phrases such as a healthcare system, hospitals and clinics, and the countryside.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people think that cities are the best places to live. Others prefer to live in a rural area. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of living in the city to living in the countryside.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.