Rich countries should not employ skilled labour from poor countries, as poor countries need the workers more. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Sample Response
Brain drain is a much-debated issue and many people believe that developed countries should not provide work for skilled professionals from developing or poor nations since they are better utilised in the homeland. I personally believe that this system should be stopped as it would make poor countries poorer while rich countries would be richer in long run. First, poor countries can produce only a handful number of talented people each year through their broken economic and educational system. The government and public money are spent to support those students and professionals and when they are ready to serve the country, rich nations actually hijack them. This is quite unethical and a majority of the migrated professionals serve the migrated countries than the countries they were born. This system allows the developed countries to have a large number of talented professionals, scientists, writers, engineers, doctors and so on while poor countries suffer from the scarcity of such experts. These talented and qualified people are the keys to the development of a poor country and they should serve their motherland. Second, a developed country already has a large number of skilled labours and expert workers and they can do quite well without alluring skilled professionals to come and work there. For instance, the number of native astronomers and scientists in the United States is already huge and they could easily do without brain draining talented and skilled professionals from other countries. Rich countries have a natural obligation to actually send their proficient workers to work and train citizens of poor nations for the betterment of the world. Employing skilled labours from other countries is actually a practice that ruins the equilibrium of development in the world. Finally, many skilled labours that migrate to the first world countries often end up working in a sector which is simply irrelevant to their education and skill and hence is a wastage of talent and time. For instance, many doctors and engineers in first world countries actually work in a restaurant or drive a cab only because they were migrated from poor countries and failed to show their worthiness. They could have better serve the humanity by being enrolled in their original professions in their homelands.
In conclusion, the better lifestyle and more money are the reasons skilled labours migrate to rich countries and this brain drain system should be stopped for the overall betterment of the world.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Clarify the referent Original: in the homeland Suggested revision: in their home countries Why it matters: The plural possessive phrase clearly refers back to the professionals.
- 2. Add required article Original: in long run Suggested revision: in the long run Why it matters: The fixed expression requires the definite article “the.”
- 3. Fix quantity phrase Original: a handful number of talented people Suggested revision: a handful of talented people Why it matters: “A handful of” is the correct quantifying structure.
- 4. Use plural agreement Original: system Suggested revision: systems Why it matters: The plural subject “countries” calls for systems belonging to multiple nations.
- 5. Use natural expression Original: the keys to the development Suggested revision: key to the development Why it matters: “Be key to” is the natural expression for something essential to progress.
- 6. Use countable noun Original: labours Suggested revision: workers Why it matters: “Labour” is uncountable when referring collectively to workers.
- 7. Correct verb choice Original: alluring Suggested revision: attracting Why it matters: “Attracting” is the appropriate neutral verb for encouraging professionals to work somewhere.
- 8. Avoid malformed verb Original: brain draining talented and skilled professionals Suggested revision: recruiting talented and skilled professionals Why it matters: “Brain drain” is not naturally used as a transitive verb in this construction.
- 9. Use natural collocation Original: equilibrium of development Suggested revision: balance of global development Why it matters: The replacement expresses worldwide disparities in development more naturally.
- 10. Use current terminology Original: the first world countries Suggested revision: developed countries Why it matters: “Developed countries” is clearer and more neutral in this context.
- 11. Improve relationship wording Original: a sector which is simply irrelevant to Suggested revision: a sector that is unrelated to Why it matters: A work sector is more naturally described as unrelated to someone’s training.
- 12. Use plural noun Original: skill Suggested revision: skills Why it matters: The countable noun should be plural when referring to professionals’ different abilities.
Suggested Rewrites
- in the homeland in their home countries
- in long run in the long run
- a handful number of talented people a handful of talented people
- system systems
- the keys to the development key to the development
- labours workers
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response’s strongest feature is its firm position supported by several relevant reasons about investment, expertise shortages, and wasted talent. Its main limitation is uneven language control: recurrent word-choice, plural, article, and verb-form problems make some claims sound imprecise despite remaining understandable. The highest-priority improvement is to present the arguments in clearly separated paragraphs while editing recurring phrases about skilled workers and migration for grammatical and collocational accuracy.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response clearly agrees with the statement and develops several relevant reasons with examples, though some assertions are broad or insufficiently qualified.
Strengthen the argument by qualifying sweeping claims and explaining more precisely why restricting recruitment would produce the stated benefits.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument follows a recognizable sequence and uses clear signposting, but multiple main ideas are compressed into one very long body paragraph.
Separate the investment, domestic capacity, and underemployment arguments into distinct paragraphs with clearer internal topic development.
Lexical Resource
The response demonstrates a good range of topic vocabulary, but recurrent awkward collocations and word forms reduce precision and naturalness.
Replace inaccurate expressions such as “skilled labours,” “migrated professionals,” and “brain draining” with natural worker- and migration-related terms.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex sentences communicates the argument clearly, although article, agreement, comparison, and verb-form errors recur.
Prioritize editing plural count nouns and verb phrases, especially forms such as “labourers,” “serve humanity,” and “could have served.”
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
Rich countries should not employ skilled labour from poor countries, as poor countries need the workers more. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.