When you learn a foreign language, all four skills (listening, reading, speaking, writing) are equally important. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
In an era when people choose to learn additional languagesmore language, the question of whether people must learn all four skills has sparked an intense debate. While some argue that all four skills are equally important, others believeWhile some argue that four skills are equally important.Some people believe that they only need to learnonly need learn several of these skills well, and it is not necessary to master all four skills. These four language skills are closely interrelatedhave close relations and they are all very important for people who learn new languages. Listening and reading are essential channels for learners to acquire vocabularybasic ways for learners to get new words and learn simple grammar rules. After they learn these basic language points, they can use speaking and writing to show their own thoughts and feelings. These skills help each other and make up a full study process for foreign languages. If language learners give up practising any one skill, their language level will not be good enough. For example, some students can read foreign articles well but they cannot talk with others smoothly. This makes it hard for them to communicateThis makes them hard to communicate with foreign people in daily life. Some other students are fluent in spoken communicationgood at talking but they cannot write good articles for academic purposesstudy use. This clearly shows that the four skills are all needed and equally important for people to improve their foreign language ability. It is true that some people may spend more time on certain skills in some short-time cases. For people who travel to other countries, they only need basiceasy listening and speaking skills to talk with others in daily life. For students and people who do research work, they need to read more foreign passages and write more articles for their study and work. However, this is just a short-time study method. For long-term language learning and better overall ability, all of the four skills are still very important and no one can be left out. In conclusion, although people have different short-term learning focuses, the four basic language skills are equally important in foreign language learning in general. Only balanced practice of all skills can help learners master a foreign language well.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The essay presents a clear, well-supported opinion that addresses all aspects of the prompt with good logical flow. The main limitation lies in mechanical accuracy and vocabulary choice, where occasional grammatical errors and simplistic phrasing occur. To improve, focus on eliminating sentence fragments and expanding academic vocabulary to express ideas more precisely.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response presents a clear position throughout the essay and thoroughly addresses whether all four skills are equally important.
Develop supporting points further by providing more specific, real-world examples rather than general hypotheticals.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas are logically organized into distinct paragraphs with a clear overall progression from introduction to conclusion.
Ensure transitions between sentences are varied and avoid sentence fragments at paragraph boundaries.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is adequate to convey meaning clearly, though there is some reliance on basic word choices and repetition.
Incorporate a broader range of less common, academic vocabulary and precise collocations suitable for Task 2 writing.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex sentence structures is used, but punctuation errors and occasional awkward phrasing are present.
Proofread carefully to fix sentence fragments and ensure correct verb pattern structures throughout the essay.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
When you learn a foreign language, all four skills (listening, reading, speaking, writing) are equally important. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.