In Britain, when someone gets old they often go to live in a home with other old people where there are nurses to look after them. Sometimes the government has to pay for this care. Who do you think should pay for this care, the government or the family?
Sample Response
A visible change of any living organism is getting older. Child, youth, adult and elder are some of the stages in our life. Child and elderly stages are dependent stages compared to other two stages. For both of these situations, a human being needs other’s support.
While we were children, our parents were there for our supportive role. When the parents became older, definitely their children need to be the supportive role for their parents. This is the role we carry among human beings vice versa. If the parents live with their children only parents will feel safer, attached to family and sharing of love. Unfortunately, many of them attending to works, they do not have time to look after their children neither their parents. In this case, elders could be sending to some a common place where other elders are staying. But payment cannot be made by the government.
Since it is the responsibility of their family, definitely family needs to pay for caring of their parents. They may not have enough time to take care of their parents. Since the government has employed special people for that, at least those elders’ parents need to be paid by their family.
For an example, many of the parents were private sector employees and they did not have a monthly pension scheme. But they have only Employee provident fund and employee trust funds. It has been used by the children of the parents in plantation sector of Sri Lanka. Finally, children will neither look after their parents nor elderly parents do not have own money in hand. That is, all advantages utilised from elders. When they become a stage of the dependent, families are trying to escape from their responsibilities. This is a kind of selfish. Paid by the government should be stopped and families should be paid for them.
Especially the children are responsible for looking after the parents; they should definitely pay for the parents and not the government.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use life-stage nouns Original: Child, youth, adult and elder Suggested revision: Childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age Why it matters: The list requires parallel nouns naming life stages rather than people at those stages.
- 2. Use plural possessive noun Original: in our life Suggested revision: in our lives Why it matters: The plural possessive “our” refers to the separate lives of multiple people.
- 3. Name stages consistently Original: Child and elderly stages Suggested revision: Childhood and old age Why it matters: The revision uses parallel nouns that correctly name the two stages.
- 4. Add definite article Original: compared to other two stages Suggested revision: compared with the other two stages Why it matters: The known remaining stages require “the”, and “compared with” suits a direct comparison.
- 5. Use plural possessive Original: other’s support Suggested revision: others' support Why it matters: The meaning is support from multiple other people, so the plural possessive is required.
- 6. Express support directly Original: our parents were there for our supportive role Suggested revision: our parents were there to support us Why it matters: The original noun phrase does not express the parents' supportive action naturally.
- 7. Use general present Original: When the parents became older Suggested revision: When parents grow older Why it matters: The essay makes a general statement, so the simple present and no article are appropriate.
- 8. Improve adverb position Original: definitely their children need Suggested revision: their children definitely need Why it matters: The adverb should follow the subject in this clause.
- 9. Use role collocation Original: be the supportive role Suggested revision: play a supportive role Why it matters: People “play” a role; they do not “be” the role itself.
- 10. Clarify reciprocal role Original: we carry among human beings vice versa Suggested revision: that human beings fulfil reciprocally Why it matters: The revised relative clause expresses the mutual responsibility in grammatical English.
- 11. Fix passive form Original: elders could be sending Suggested revision: elderly people could be sent Why it matters: The passive modal requires “be sent”, not “be sending”.
- 12. Fix article order Original: to some a common place Suggested revision: to a shared care facility Why it matters: The original determiner order is ungrammatical, and the revised noun identifies the intended place.
Suggested Rewrites
- Child, youth, adult and elder Childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age
- in our life in our lives
- Child and elderly stages Childhood and old age
- compared to other two stages compared with the other two stages
- other’s support others' support
- our parents were there for our supportive role our parents were there to support us
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response gives a consistent answer that families should pay and offers a relevant moral principle of reciprocal responsibility, supported by an attempted financial example. However, the reasoning is repetitive and sometimes unclear, and frequent grammatical and lexical errors regularly strain comprehension. The highest-priority improvement is to organise two clear reasons for family payment, explain the example in simple accurate sentences, and address families who genuinely cannot afford care.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Detailed feedback by IELTS writing criterion after the annotated essay.
Task Response
A clear position is maintained and supported by relevant ideas about family duty and parental resources, but development is repetitive, uneven, and sometimes difficult to follow.
Develop two distinct reasons for family responsibility and consider whether government support is justified for low-income households.
Coherence and Cohesion
Paragraphing provides a basic sequence from dependency to responsibility and an example, but repetition and unclear referencing weaken progression within and between sections.
Give each paragraph one central claim and use explicit nouns rather than ambiguous references such as they, them, and those elders' parents.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is sufficient to express the main position, but limited flexibility and frequent inaccurate word combinations often obscure the intended meaning.
Use precise recurring terms such as elderly parents, residential care, family responsibility, government funding, pension, and financial support.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Some sentence structures are controlled, but frequent errors in verb forms, agreement, articles, coordination, and passive construction cause regular difficulty for the reader.
Write shorter subject-verb-object sentences and check each one for a complete verb before combining ideas with conjunctions.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
In Britain, when someone gets old they often go to live in a home with other old people where there are nurses to look after them. Sometimes the government has to pay for this care. Who do you think should pay for this care, the government or the family?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.