Today, the majority of children are raised by their grandparents due to the fact that their parents are busy working. To what extent do you think it affects the whole family?
Sample Response
In the past, one of the parents, usually mother, stay at home for looking after their children. However, with the increase in the career-oriented lifestyle, children had to stay with their grandparents. I believe that this arrangement has more negative effects than positive ones. In this essay, the manner in which parent-child relationship and the health of the young people is affected will be analysed.
To begin with, children spending maximum time with their grandparents can afflict the relationship with their parent. A good illustration for this are the young people for various countries, particularly, India is being looked after by their grandparents while parents continue to focus on their career. Because of this, they do not have enough time to know their parents and fail to develop the bond of love with them. The negative implications of the pupils have been taken care by their grandparents are thus clear.
Most of the times, children lose their grandparents when there are growing and hence can result in the health problems. The reason for believing this is that they loose their grandparents can make them feel lonely and they can find it difficult to connect with their parents. As a result, they can face the issues related to mental health such as depression at the early age. Thus, the link between the degradation of young children's health and the close relation with their grandparents is clear.
From the above discussion, it is difficult to debunk that the bonding and the fitness of the child could be hampered if they have to spend an inordinate time with ageing grandparents. Therefore, it is expected that parents will prefer to stay with their child in the foreseeable future.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Add the article Original: usually mother Suggested revision: usually the mother Why it matters: A singular countable family role needs the definite article in this parenthetical phrase.
- 2. Use past tense Original: stay Suggested revision: stayed Why it matters: The opening time marker places this action in the past.
- 3. Use infinitive purpose Original: for looking after Suggested revision: to look after Why it matters: An infinitive expresses the purpose of staying at home more naturally.
- 4. Use natural phrasing Original: with the increase in the career-oriented lifestyle Suggested revision: as career-focused lifestyles became more common Why it matters: The replacement expresses the social trend in a more natural collocation.
- 5. Add the article Original: parent-child relationship Suggested revision: the parent-child relationship Why it matters: This specific relationship requires a determiner.
- 6. Use natural quantifier Original: spending maximum time Suggested revision: spending most of their time Why it matters: Most of their time is the idiomatic expression for the greatest proportion of time.
- 7. Choose accurate collocation Original: can afflict the relationship with their parent Suggested revision: can damage their relationship with their parents Why it matters: Damage a relationship is the appropriate collocation, and the plural matches the general reference.
- 8. Use concise collocation Original: bond of love Suggested revision: loving bond Why it matters: Loving bond expresses the same idea more naturally and concisely.
- 9. Keep reference consistent Original: pupils Suggested revision: children Why it matters: Children is the accurate and consistent term because the discussion is about family care rather than school attendance.
- 10. Correct passive form Original: have been taken care by Suggested revision: cared for by Why it matters: Care for requires the preposition for, and this concise passive form is grammatical.
- 11. Use uncountable time Original: times Suggested revision: time Why it matters: The fixed expression uses the uncountable singular noun time.
- 12. Correct pronoun and verb Original: there are growing Suggested revision: they are growing up Why it matters: They must refer to the children, and grow up expresses the intended process.
Suggested Rewrites
- usually mother usually the mother
- stay stayed
- for looking after to look after
- with the increase in the career-oriented lifestyle as career-focused lifestyles became more common
- parent-child relationship the parent-child relationship
- spending maximum time spending most of their time
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response presents a clear negative view and organises the discussion around weakened parent-child bonds and possible mental-health effects. Its main limitation is that it considers the effects on children and parents only narrowly, while the second argument is speculative and insufficiently supported; frequent language errors also blur several points. Address the wider family more directly and develop each effect through a plausible causal explanation and specific evidence.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response maintains a clear negative position and presents two relevant effects, but family-wide coverage and support are limited.
Explain distinct effects on children, parents, and grandparents, using plausible causes and specific examples for each.
Coherence and Cohesion
The four-paragraph structure gives the response a generally clear progression, although some links are mechanical and the second body argument is not fully coherent.
Use a clear topic sentence and a step-by-step causal chain in each body paragraph instead of formulaic closing statements.
Lexical Resource
There is enough topic vocabulary to discuss relationships and health, but frequent inaccurate choices and collocations reduce precision.
Use natural expressions for childcare, parent-child bonds, bereavement, and mental health, and check confusing verb choices.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of sentence forms is attempted, but frequent errors in agreement, clauses, articles, pronouns, and verb forms are noticeable.
Prioritise complete clause structure and check subject-verb agreement and pronoun reference in every sentence.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Today, the majority of children are raised by their grandparents due to the fact that their parents are busy working. To what extent do you think it affects the whole family?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.