"Prevention is better than cure." Out of a country's health budget, a large proportion should be diverted from treatment to spending on health education and preventative measures. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Sample Response
A government has various responsibilities to its citizens, and perhaps the most important of them all is ensuring proper healthcare"health care". There are different approaches to this, namely "prevention" versus "cure". This essay will explain why the treatment of patients is superior, using the case of tobacco as a clear example.
Firstly, health education has its limitslimit and is not always effective. Over the last four decades, various Western governments have attempted to discourage smokers by placing health warning labelssurgeon’s warnings and graphic imagesrevolting pictures and running various awareness campaignsthrough different awareness campaigns. Yet smokers continue to smokeYet smokers want to light up. Therefore, this seriously calls into questionit seriously questions the government's prevention effortsendeavours of prevention rather than cure. Nevertheless, through the same period cancer treatment has improved considerably, even producingconsiderably even producing beneficial spin-off discoveries for asthma patients. So, treatment is not only more effective but also has other benefits for the people in a society.
Secondly, even if prevention has strong evidence supporting its effectivenesssolid evidence of being effective, there are common casesthere is the common cases of patients becoming ill by chancesuffering by pure chance. For example, some people can suffer from lung cancer who have never been a smoker whereas people smoking a pack a day can escape such illness. Therefore, even having followed the government's guidance, there would still be a need for treatment. In addition, if funds are divertedthe fund is diverted from research intofor cures to education, there would be little to help patients affected by chancethose ‘chance victims’.
To conclude, the prevention of diseases has failed considerably in many cases whereas proper treatment can help many patients recoverpatients to recover. This is why diverting budgets tofor health education or preventive measures is not a prudent idea.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response maintains a clear position, uses a relevant tobacco example, and progresses logically from the limits of prevention to the continuing need for treatment. Its main limitation is that the case against diverting a large proportion of the budget is somewhat narrow and occasionally overgeneralised. Develop a broader, more balanced justification and correct the few awkward or inaccurate sentence constructions to make the argument more persuasive and precise.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response directly disagrees with the proposal and develops two relevant reasons, supported by a sustained example and a clear conclusion.
Broaden the argument beyond tobacco and address why treatment should retain most funding even when prevention is demonstrably effective.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response is logically organised into clear paragraphs, with generally effective sequencing and referencing despite a few mechanical links.
Make the relationship between evidence and inference more explicit instead of relying repeatedly on connectors such as therefore.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a good range of precise health and policy vocabulary, with only occasional awkward or overstated word choices.
Refine less natural expressions such as health education has its limit and chance victims to strengthen precision and register.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Varied complex structures are generally well controlled, although occasional agreement, article, and clause errors remain noticeable.
Proofread noun agreement and relative-clause forms, particularly constructions such as there is the common cases and people who have never been smokers.
Write this task while it is fresh
Try the same task now. It helps you remember the feedback and write better next time.
IELTS Writing Task 2
"Prevention is better than cure." Out of a country's health budget, a large proportion should be diverted from treatment to spending on health education and preventative measures. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.