Nowadays, more and more people decide to have children later in their life. What are the reasons? Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?

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Sample Response

1

Having babies later in lifeage is regarded as a new family-planning trenda new trend of marriage, especially nowadaysespecially in these days when becoming parents at a young agesoon becoming adolescent parents might face plenty of troubles. It is easily seen that the financial burden is one of the reasons why many spouses tend to delay having childrendelay their childbirth because giving birth early forces them to live on a tighter budgettighten the budget. In this essay, I will provide further reasonslend more other detailed reasons and effects of this trend.

2

The fact that pregnancy has been more common in older women stemming from late-life marriage whose benefits are huge. Tying the knot early, in some cases, would cause constant quarrels about child-rearing responsibilitiesrights of child-rearing between young couples due to their immature understanding of marriagethoughts on marital values. In contrast, delayed marriage may secure better conditions for children’s future. This would help singles have more time to seek a financially stable job and gain more life experiencebroaden behavioural experience before deciding to live with someone forever. Besides, the high remarriage ratehigh remarriage rate caused by the rise in divorceled by the rise of divorce in recent years partly contributes to late childbirth. The reason is that the lack of compatibility forces many couples to end their first marriagelove and marry again. Therefore, they may start having children after the age of 35start having children after age 35.

3

As mentioned above, the benefits of late childbirth are undeniable, however, elderly parents, as well as a society also face threats that they can foresee. Indeed, raising kids at an older ageat old age is more arduous than that at a young age, not only because their health will decline but also because their children are too young to care for themselvestoo little to self-manage. Moreover, having children after reaching the age of 35when reaching over 35 can affect pregnancy due to age-related health risksageing health. As a result, babies are may have health problemsnot healthy enough or even die a premature death.

4

In conclusion, stable income and settled life make delayed marriage more appealing. The thing is we need to consider the pros and cons of this to decide what is right for a happy union.

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 6.0

The response offers several relevant reasons for delayed parenthood and considers meaningful disadvantages, while its paragraph sequence remains broadly clear. Its main limitation is that it never gives a definite answer to whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, and some ideas are expressed imprecisely. The highest priority is to establish and maintain a clear comparative position, then support it with more precise explanations and examples.

Band score breakdown

IELTS Writing Criteria Scores

TR

Task Response

5.5
Scoring rule

The response addresses reasons, benefits, and drawbacks, but it does not clearly answer whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Next step

State a definite comparative position in the introduction and conclusion, and make each body paragraph support that judgement.

CC

Coherence and Cohesion

6.0
Scoring rule

The essay follows a generally logical paragraph sequence, though some links between ideas are unclear or mechanical.

Next step

Use clearer topic sentences and connect each explanation explicitly to the paragraph's central point.

LR

Lexical Resource

6.0
Scoring rule

There is a sufficient range of topic vocabulary, but several awkward collocations and imprecise word choices weaken clarity.

Next step

Prioritise natural, precise combinations such as gaining life experience and health risks associated with later pregnancy.

GRA

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

6.0
Scoring rule

The response uses both simple and complex structures, but recurring errors in sentence construction, agreement, and punctuation remain noticeable.

Next step

Check that every complex sentence has a complete main clause and that subjects, verbs, and punctuation are accurately controlled.