To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The best way to solve the world’s environmental problem is to increase the price of fuel.
Sample Response
The environment is facing many problems, and most of them are created largely by human actions. To protect the environment, some people suggest increasing the fuel price as the most effective solution as they think that fuel price would reduce private car ownership and check uncontrolled industrialisation. In this essay, I will disagree with this opinion by discussing that global environmental problems are multifaceted and increasing the fuel price is not the best possible solution.
To begin with, increasing the price of fuel would not deter the rich and upper-middle class to drive their own cars but increase the price of necessary commodities making life for the poor and lower-middle class even more difficult. It is evident that people who earn a large sum of money, do not care even a hundred per cent fuel price increase decision as they can afford that without denting their pockets. But a mere 20% fuel price increase would make life difficult for mass people as the price of daily items and essential services would increase proportionately. Similarly, when industries have to purchase fuel at an elevated price, they inflate the price of their products thus profiting even more. Therefore, a high fuel price is not a viable solution to address environmental issues.
Moreover, only fossil fuel is not the culprit for environmental degradation and it is a multifaceted issue. Logging of woods, uncontrolled urbanisation, chemical wastage, water and noise pollution and our cosy lifestyle and consumerism habits are all responsible for environmental concerns. And all these issues need proper policy implementation rather than hiking the price of fuel. For instance, to reduce deforestation, water and noise pollution, we need proper policy and their implementation not a hike in fuel prices.
Therefore, increasing the fuel price may be a way to control environmental problems to a limited extent, but it could never be the best solution. We need to include many integrated policies and diverse methods to save our environment.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use a natural collocation Original: created largely by human actions Suggested revision: largely caused by human activity Why it matters: “Caused by human activity” is the more natural academic collocation in this context.
- 2. Use concise phrasing Original: increasing the fuel price as the most effective solution Suggested revision: raising fuel prices as the most effective solution Why it matters: The plural and concise verb phrase describe the general policy more naturally.
- 3. Clarify the reason link Original: as they think that Suggested revision: because they believe that Why it matters: The replacement avoids repeating “as” and makes the causal relation explicit.
- 4. Choose a precise verb Original: check uncontrolled industrialisation Suggested revision: curb uncontrolled industrialisation Why it matters: “Curb” expresses restraining an unwanted process more precisely than “check.”
- 5. Correct the reporting structure Original: by discussing that Suggested revision: by arguing that Why it matters: “Argue that” correctly introduces the proposition, whereas “discuss that” is not grammatical here.
- 6. Fix the verb pattern Original: deter the rich and upper-middle class to drive Suggested revision: deter rich and upper-middle-class people from driving Why it matters: “Deter” takes “from” plus a gerund, and the revised noun phrase refers clearly to people.
- 7. Restore verb parallelism Original: but increase the price Suggested revision: but would increase the price Why it matters: Repeating “would” makes the two coordinated consequences grammatically parallel.
- 8. Use the usual term Original: necessary commodities Suggested revision: essential goods Why it matters: “Essential goods” is the more natural term for necessary items whose prices may rise.
- 9. Correct the quantifier Original: for mass people Suggested revision: for many people Why it matters: “Mass” cannot modify “people” in this way; “many” expresses the intended quantity.
- 10. Clarify the noun phrase Original: daily items Suggested revision: everyday goods Why it matters: “Everyday goods” more precisely denotes routinely purchased necessities.
- 11. Mark the result phrase Original: their products thus profiting Suggested revision: their products, thus profiting Why it matters: A comma is needed before the supplementary result phrase beginning with “thus.”
- 12. Correct negative placement Original: only fossil fuel is not the culprit Suggested revision: fossil fuel is not the only culprit Why it matters: Placing “only” after “not the” expresses that other causes also exist.
Suggested Rewrites
- created largely by human actions largely caused by human activity
- increasing the fuel price as the most effective solution raising fuel prices as the most effective solution
- as they think that because they believe that
- check uncontrolled industrialisation curb uncontrolled industrialisation
- by discussing that by arguing that
- deter the rich and upper-middle class to drive deter rich and upper-middle-class people from driving
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response directly rejects the proposed solution and supports its position through two well-developed arguments concerning unequal economic effects and the multifaceted causes of environmental damage. Progression is clear and the language has good range, though several awkward collocations and grammatical slips reduce precision. Refining sentence-level accuracy and using more natural phrasing would make an already persuasive argument consistently polished.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Detailed feedback by IELTS writing criterion after the annotated essay.
Task Response
A clear position is fully maintained and developed with relevant, specific reasoning about economic consequences and the need for wider policy measures.
Strengthen the second argument with one concrete example of an integrated policy and explain its environmental effect in more detail.
Coherence and Cohesion
The essay is logically sequenced with focused paragraphs and clear progression, although some transitions and repeated references to fuel prices feel slightly mechanical.
Use more varied referencing and integrate examples smoothly so that connections emerge from the reasoning rather than explicit linkers alone.
Lexical Resource
A good range of topic vocabulary conveys precise arguments, with occasional unnatural collocations such as expressions about mass people or logging woods.
Replace the few non-idiomatic combinations with natural academic phrasing while retaining the effective range and specificity.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide variety of complex sentences is used with generally good control, though occasional errors in complementation, agreement, punctuation, and reference remain.
Proofread long sentences for verb patterns, subject-verb agreement, pronoun reference, and unnecessary commas to achieve more consistent accuracy.