In many countries, a small number of people earn extremely high salaries. Some people believe that this is good for the country, but others think that governments should not allow salaries above a certain level. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.
Sample Response
Many argue that allowing a handful of individuals to earn astronomical salaries drives national prosperity, while others insist that governments must cap earnings to ensure fairness. Although I acknowledge the reasons behind the former view, I am still in favor of the latter.
Admittedly, allowing extremely high salaries can indeed spur economic growth and innovation. Regarding economic benefits, competitive compensation can entice leading experts whose inventive efforts propel industrial leadership. For example, global tech firms invest heavily in executive pay to secure pioneering talent, thereby accelerating product development and market share gains. Moreover, burgeoning tax revenues from these high earners significantly bolster government budgets and create a sustainable funding stream. With these enhanced resources, authorities can invest in critical infrastructure—such as transportation networks and healthcare facilities—and expand social services, thereby elevating overall living standards.
Nevertheless, I believe that capping salaries may curb inequality and promote social cohesion. The first reason is that imposing income ceilings narrows the gap between the richest and the poorest by limiting excessive earnings. For example, cooperatives enforce rigid pay ratios—capping executive wages at five times the lowest salary—and thus cultivate genuinely equitable workplaces. Furthermore, enhanced social mobility can be fostered by channeling a share of excessive earnings into public education. Specifically, when redistributed earnings bolster school and scholarship budgets, funding for educational programmes increases substantially. Consequently, broader access to learning opportunities dismantles entrenched privilege and empowers individuals from underprivileged backgrounds.
In conclusion, while generous remuneration packages attract expertise and augment tax inflows, I believe that instituting reasonable salary caps is vital to reduce wealth disparities and ensure that all citizens have a fair chance to succeed.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Moderate causal claim Original: drives national prosperity Suggested revision: can promote national prosperity Why it matters: Adding can avoids presenting a complex national effect as an automatic result.
- 2. Use precise phrase Original: reasons behind the former view Suggested revision: arguments for the former view Why it matters: Arguments for directly names the case that the essay will acknowledge.
- 3. Use natural collocation Original: entice Suggested revision: attract Why it matters: Attract is the conventional verb for bringing skilled professionals to an employer.
- 4. Improve precision Original: inventive efforts propel industrial leadership Suggested revision: innovative work strengthens industrial leadership Why it matters: The revision describes the experts' contribution in a more natural and precise way.
- 5. Use precise description Original: burgeoning Suggested revision: higher Why it matters: Higher directly expresses the comparison implied by very large salaries.
- 6. Avoid absolute claim Original: genuinely Suggested revision: more Why it matters: More equitable accurately presents the pay ratio as an improvement rather than proof of complete equality.
- 7. Reduce redundant wording Original: enhanced social mobility can be fostered Suggested revision: social mobility can be improved Why it matters: Enhanced and fostered duplicate the idea of improvement and make the clause unnecessarily heavy.
- 8. Moderate overstatement Original: dismantles entrenched privilege Suggested revision: helps reduce entrenched privilege Why it matters: Helps reduce matches the limited causal claim supported by broader educational access.
- 9. Use standard term Original: augment tax inflows Suggested revision: increase tax revenues Why it matters: Increase tax revenues is clearer and more conventional in this economic context.
- 10. Clarify policy transition Suggested revision: Make the transition from salary caps to redistribution explicit before discussing education funding. Why it matters: The paragraph shifts from limiting salaries to reallocating earnings without showing how the two policy ideas connect.
Suggested Rewrites
- drives national prosperity can promote national prosperity
- reasons behind the former view arguments for the former view
- entice attract
- inventive efforts propel industrial leadership innovative work strengthens industrial leadership
- burgeoning higher
- genuinely more
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response is strongest in its direct coverage of both views, consistently clear opinion, and well-developed causal explanations supported by specific examples. The main limitation is a slight conceptual gap between imposing a salary ceiling and redistributing excessive earnings for education, alongside a few densely formal word choices. The highest-priority improvement is to make the proposed policy mechanism fully consistent so every supporting point directly demonstrates how salary caps would produce the claimed benefit.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Both views are addressed directly and in depth, and the writer's preference for reasonable salary caps remains clear throughout.
Clarify how capped earnings would be redirected into education, since that mechanism currently resembles taxation more than a salary ceiling.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response is very well organised, with controlled paragraph development, clear logical sequencing, and cohesive devices that rarely attract attention.
Make the transition from pay ratios to education funding more explicit so the second argument follows seamlessly from the salary-cap policy.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is wide, precise, and flexibly deployed, with only occasional phrasing that feels slightly over-formal or less exact than the surrounding language.
Prefer the most exact policy terms and moderate a few elevated choices where plainer wording would communicate the argument more naturally.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide variety of complex structures is handled with excellent control, and the response is virtually free from grammatical error.
Maintain this accuracy while occasionally shortening densely modified sentences to make sophisticated arguments even easier to process.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
In many countries, a small number of people earn extremely high salaries. Some people believe that this is good for the country, but others think that governments should not allow salaries above a certain level. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.