Art classes, like painting and drawing are as important as other subjects, so they should be made compulsory in high school. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Some people think art subjects such as painting and drawing are as important as other school subjects, so high schools should make them required classes. I mostly agree with this idea, but this rule also causes some problems for students. Making art a compulsory subject is helpful for many students. Some teenagers cannot get good marks in core academic subjectscommon subjects like maths and science, but they are really good at painting. If art becomes a compulsory coursemust‑take class, these students can get more help from teachers and more learning resources at school. They can show their strengthsstrong points in class and feel more confident, instead of feeling discouragedbad when they fail their school work. Besides this, art classes can help students think in new ways. When students draw pictures, they need to observe their surroundings closelywatch things carefully and show their own ideas on paper. These skills are useful for their future studies and future jobs. However, compulsory art classes will bring more academic pressure onstudy pressure to high‑school students. Young students already have a large amount of homeworkmuch homework and they need to prepare for many tests every term. If schools ask every student to learn art, students will have more classes and more homework to finish. Many students do not like painting at all. They will see art as another boring school task. They may spend much time on art practice, have less time to reviewgo over their main subjects, and finally get worse scores in their important exams. In conclusion, although compulsory art classes bring more pressure for some young people, I still think high schools should make art compulsory. It gives valuable opportunitiesgood chances to students who are talented at art and helps them to be more creative. So art classes should have the same importance as other subjects in high school.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The essay presents a clear position throughout, offering well-developed arguments both in favour of compulsory art classes and acknowledging potential drawbacks. Ideas are organized logically into distinct paragraphs with clear overarching progression. To achieve a higher band, the writer should focus on incorporating more precise, advanced vocabulary and varying complex sentence structures more consistently.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The candidate addresses all parts of the prompt with a clear, consistent position and relevant supporting arguments.
Provide deeper elaboration on how counterarguments can be mitigated to strengthen the main thesis further.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information is arranged logically with clear paragraphing and effective use of cohesive devices throughout.
Incorporate a wider variety of sophisticated transition words to connect ideas more naturally across paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is mostly accurate and adequate for the task, though relies on relatively simple and repetitive phrasing.
Use more varied academic vocabulary and topic-specific collocations to express complex ideas with greater precision.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The candidate demonstrates good control over basic grammatical structures with frequent error-free sentences.
Attempt a broader range of complex clause structures while maintaining accurate control of word order and preposition choice.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Art classes, like painting and drawing are as important as other subjects, so they should be made compulsory in high school. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.