The government spends about £220 million a year supporting museums and galleries in the UK, and a similar amount subsiding the visual and performing arts. This is a huge sum to spend on minority interests and the money would be better spent on more important things. It should be up to the people who enjoy cultural attractions to pay for them. What are your views on this issue?
Sample Response
The substantialoverwhelming budget for arts, museums and galleries is often criticised by a group of people and they advocate spending this money onadvocate the need of this money on more pressing issues like hunger, poor health care, and terrorism. They also opine that people who have an enthusiasm for the artsenthusiasm for such arts should cover the costsbear the expenses. I believe that arts and museums are part of the enlightened world and they reflect the identity of a country. Hence the government spending on the artsspending by the government in arts is quite logical. To begin with, museums preserve historypreserve the history and they have great educational valuevalues. They attract a huge number of foreign visitors and bring foreign currency into the countrybring foreign currency for a country. For instance, the British Museum in London alone attracts more than 6.8 million visitors annually and this brings many foreign visitors to Londonbrings a lot of foreigners in London as well. Furthermore, a large number of art galleries and theatres are the reason people find visiting the UK a unique experience. They would not have been here if the UK did not have these attractions. On top of that, visual arts, performing arts and other art forms reflect the unique heritage and culture of the United Kingdomheritage and culture the United Kingdom has. They convey our strength, tell our history and preserve our culture. Human minds crave artcrave for arts and without arts, science would become too technical for the general public to enjoytoo technical to the mass people to enjoy. For instance, the incredible power of computers not only solvespowers of computers do not only solve complex mathematical equations, but also create animations, graphics and other forms of arts for people to enjoy. In summary, people need arts as much as they need science. Food aloneOnly food cannot ensure better living as we need to get engagedengages in creative activities and produce works of artyield artworks. In my opinion, the works of Thomas Hudson are no less important than the works of any scientistscientists. So the government's funding for different forms of arts and museums is totally justified.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response presents a firm, relevant view and supports public arts funding with several developed benefits, especially education, tourism, and cultural preservation. Its main limitation is uneven organisation: all reasoning appears in one dense paragraph, and the later comparison between art and science becomes less convincing. The highest priority is to divide the argument into focused paragraphs and deepen the case for government rather than individual funding.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The position is clear and relevant benefits are well supported, though the case against user-only funding is mostly implied and the science analogy is less persuasive.
Explain explicitly why admission fees or private payment alone would not adequately preserve access, heritage, and national benefits.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas follow a recognisable sequence with effective signposting, but the single dense paragraph weakens paragraph-level organisation and some transitions feel mechanical.
Separate tourism, cultural preservation, and the conclusion into purposeful paragraphs with one controlling idea each.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and topic-appropriate, with flexible discussion of culture and public value, despite several awkward collocations and formulations.
Replace unnatural phrases such as "need of this money," "mass people," and "yield artworks" with precise, idiomatic alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A good range of sentence forms is used and meaning stays clear, although agreement, preposition, article, and verb-form errors recur.
Edit systematically for verb forms and noun agreement, particularly in phrases such as "get engaged" and "works of scientists."
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IELTS Writing Task 2
The government spends about £220 million a year supporting museums and galleries in the UK, and a similar amount subsiding the visual and performing arts. This is a huge sum to spend on minority interests and the money would be better spent on more important things. It should be up to the people who enjoy cultural attractions to pay for them. What are your views on this issue?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.