Cricket has become more popular than the national sports in the sub-continental countries. What do you think are the reasons behind this?
Sample Response
There is a very famous adage in India, "If cricket is a religion, then Sachin is a godIf Cricket is religion, then Sachin is the god". That is a statue of a cricketer in India. Admittedly, cricket is more popular than the national sportCricket is more popular than the national sports in the subcontinent, be it India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka. Almost the entire subcontinentAlmost entire subcontinent came to a standstill in April 2011 during the India and Sri Lanka World cup final match. High TRPsTRP's of TV channelschannel during the cricket season are evident. I think the main reason for the popularity of this sport is the good performance of the team. All the subcontinent teams are among the top playing teams and have won the world cup at least once (except Bangladesh). Prior to India winning 1983 world cup, Hockey was more famous as India's hockey team performed well and but after winning the world cup, people started following cricket too and since then owning to good performance, cricket became popular in India. People would hate to see their team losing all the time and would stop following the game. Many Subcontinent players are among the best in the worldworlds and have several records to their namesrecords in their kitty. For instanceInstance, when we go to a foreign countrygo to foreign country and people asks, where are you from? When I say "India", their first reaction is, "Oh! That’s where Sachin is from". That instantly makes me proud. Another reason for its popularityreason of popularity is that cricketers receiveis, Cricketers get more media attention, and they get good endorsements and are constantly in the public eyein public eyes. As compared to other sportsmen, cricketers earn more and haveCricketer earns better and have a high standard of living. Everyone wants to become a professional cricket playerprofessional cricket player and get all the benefits that they receive. In earlier days, if you are not part of an international team, your career is finished; earlier opportunities were very less but now with the IPL, many players are getting chances to play in front to a large crowd and show their talent. With the increase in opportunities, even parents are now encouraging their children to pursue cricket as a full-time careertake cricket as their full-time career. This leads to greater engagement with the game, this leads to better engagement of people towards the game. In a nutshell, I think, people will love any sport, if it entertains them and makes them feel proudit entertains them, make them feel proud.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response offers several distinct and relevant reasons for cricket's popularity, supported by concrete references to team success, national pride, media exposure, and the IPL. Its effectiveness is reduced by presenting the argument as one dense paragraph and by frequent grammatical and collocational lapses; the highest priority is to divide the reasons into focused paragraphs and systematically correct agreement, articles, and sentence boundaries.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response directly explains several relevant reasons and supports them with specific examples, though a few assertions remain broad or informal.
Clarify the causal link between each example and cricket's popularity, particularly the claims about earnings and career aspirations.
Coherence and Cohesion
The reasons progress in a generally logical sequence, but the absence of paragraph breaks and several long transitions make the argument dense.
Separate team success, media influence, and career opportunities into distinct paragraphs with clear topic sentences.
Lexical Resource
There is a useful range of topic vocabulary, but several inaccurate or awkward choices reduce precision and formality.
Correct word choice and collocation in expressions such as status, owing to, media ratings, and opportunities were limited.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of sentence forms is attempted and meaning remains clear, but errors in articles, agreement, punctuation, and clause control occur frequently.
Revise long sentences into controlled units and check every noun phrase and verb for articles, number, and subject-verb agreement.
Write this task while it is fresh
Try the same task now. It helps you remember the feedback and write better next time.
IELTS Writing Task 2
Cricket has become more popular than the national sports in the sub-continental countries. What do you think are the reasons behind this?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.