It is better for college students to live in schools than live at home with their parents. Do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
The choice of living in a hostel or staying with your parents during college is one that every student has to make before commencing their education after high school. Although such a decision is determined by several factors, barring personal preferences, residing in a college dormitory is much more functional than operating from one’s family residence. In the following paragraphs, I will elaborate on the topic and justify my views on the same.
In order to understand the superiority of hostel life for students, we must look at both alternatives objectively. One of the key benefits of residing at the hall of residence of a university is the absence of travel costs. It is a well-known fact that most academic institutions are situated in the centre of a city or a town. That being said, an individual who lives in the suburbs has to spend a lot of time, energy and money to make the journey to their university on a daily basis. Such expenses can be cut down to a great extent if students choose to stay in the student residence of their college which are mostly located within the campus.
Furthermore, residing in a dormitory helps students grow as individuals and develop skills that are impossible to acquire when living with parents. The most significant life skill that an individual emerges with after spending their college years living in schoolrooms with other collegemates is the ability to be self-sufficient. The burden of household chores always falls on our mothers when we stay at home, whereas in hostels, tasks like fixing meals, maintenance of personal belongings and other errands are the onus of every individual themselves. Students have to organize their time between such duties and classes which naturally makes them better at time management and household work at the same time.
Nevertheless, there are limitations to staying away from your family and residing in university dorm rooms like the lack of proper meals and the ordeal of surviving on a tight budget. However, such difficulties are necessary to build and grow character and develop personal maturity.
In conclusion, I would like to say that in the end, the decision of where to reside while pursuing higher education is entirely based on financial and individual circumstances. Even so, living in dormitories and being responsible for yourself is always a prudent course of action.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Keep pronouns consistent Original: your Suggested revision: their Why it matters: The sentence begins with the third-person subject “every student,” so the possessive pronoun should remain in the third person.
- 2. Use natural comparison Original: much more functional than operating from one’s family residence Suggested revision: much more practical than living at home Why it matters: “Functional” and “operating from” are unnatural choices for comparing living arrangements.
- 3. Remove formulaic wording Original: elaborate on the topic and justify my views on the same Suggested revision: explain the reasons for this view Why it matters: This concise phrasing states the essay’s purpose more naturally.
- 4. Fix residence phrase Original: residing at the hall of residence of a university Suggested revision: residing in a university hall of residence Why it matters: A person resides “in” a hall, and the stacked “of” phrases make the original construction awkward.
- 5. Use precise verb Original: make the journey to their university Suggested revision: commute to their university Why it matters: “Commute” expresses regular travel to a place of study more directly.
- 6. Improve collocation Original: cut down to a great extent Suggested revision: greatly reduced Why it matters: Expenses are conventionally “reduced,” while “cut down” is less natural here.
- 7. Fix agreement and reference Original: the student residence of their college which are Suggested revision: their college’s student residences, which are Why it matters: The plural verb “are” requires a plural antecedent, and the non-defining clause needs a comma.
- 8. Choose natural verb Original: individual emerges with Suggested revision: individual develops Why it matters: A person develops a skill rather than “emerges with” it in this context.
- 9. Use correct place noun Original: schoolrooms Suggested revision: dormitories Why it matters: “Schoolrooms” means classrooms and does not refer to student accommodation.
- 10. Use standard term Original: collegemates Suggested revision: fellow students Why it matters: “Fellow students” is the conventional expression for other students at the same institution.
- 11. Make list parallel Original: fixing meals, maintenance of personal belongings and other errands Suggested revision: preparing meals, maintaining personal belongings, and running other errands Why it matters: All three list items should use parallel gerund forms.
- 12. Fix responsibility phrase Original: are the onus of every individual themselves Suggested revision: are each individual’s responsibility Why it matters: “Onus” does not combine naturally with the reflexive construction used here.
Suggested Rewrites
- your their
- much more functional than operating from one’s family residence much more practical than living at home
- elaborate on the topic and justify my views on the same explain the reasons for this view
- residing at the hall of residence of a university residing in a university hall of residence
- make the journey to their university commute to their university
- cut down to a great extent greatly reduced
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response presents a clear preference for campus accommodation and develops relevant benefits, especially reduced commuting and greater independence, through a logical progression. Its main limitation is uneven precision: some claims are generalized and several expressions are awkward or over-elaborate, while the conclusion briefly weakens the earlier position. Prioritize sharper, more natural wording and ensure every paragraph and the conclusion consistently reinforce the stated stance.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear position is maintained and the benefits of campus living are relevant and substantially developed.
Make the final conclusion fully consistent with the strong preference established in the introduction and body.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically through well-focused paragraphs, with clear relationships between the main arguments.
Use a less formulaic range of transitions and streamline a few long sentences to make progression more natural.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a broad vocabulary, but several ambitious choices create awkward or imprecise collocations.
Replace expressions such as operating from a residence or schoolrooms with simpler, idiomatic academic phrasing.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A good range of complex structures is generally controlled, though agreement, parallelism, and pronoun-reference errors recur.
Check agreement and reference carefully in long sentences, especially when shifting among singular students, plural nouns, and pronouns.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
It is better for college students to live in schools than live at home with their parents. Do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.