Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Correction

It has been proven that smoking kills. In some countries, it has been made illegal for people to smoke in all public places except in certain areas. All countries should make these rules. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Sample Response

Smoking is considered to be one of the major causes of deaths and untreatable diseases such as cancer, around the world. Many countries have imposed stricter laws in order to restrain its usage. Such an action is the prohibition of smoking in public places. According to some, this ban can help us to lessen the usage of cigarettes to a considerable degree and therefore is advocated to be implemented everywhere in the world. While others believe it to be a restriction imposed on one's rights. Therefore, let us analyse the task at hand more deeply. It is irrefutable to say that smoking is injurious to health and need to be contained up to a certain limit. Many adverse effects are attached along with its usage in public places. First of all, it will set a bad example for the adolescents. Promoting the smoking in common places can lead the younger generations to follow the same path. And there is no doubt in that the future of the country lies in the hands of coming generations. Therefore, it would be unwise to compromise it. Secondly, the amount of litter created by this practice can lead to an incline in the garbage, which further increases the burden of government. As they have to spend more money on the cleanliness of cities. Finally, it can cause conflicts among people who are not ready to compromise their own health by inhaling the second-hand smoke. This is indeed justified as the recent studies have shown that passive smoking is as bad as normal smoking, if not worse. On the other hand, those who do not support this idea have their own reasons. The first and foremost is that those people believe that this rule will cause the demise of many businesses. They think that if it is not allowed to smoke cigarettes in public places such as bars and restaurants, then people will stop coming to such places and those businesses will have to entail losses. What is more, according to them, it will also result in unemployment. As decreased usage of cigarettes means lesser sales which in result can render many workers out of jobs. Finally, it is also seen as a valuable source of generating revenues for the government and if this rule is to be put into action, then a big portion of that income will be taken away from the government, which it levies in the form of taxes. To conclude, it can be said that allowing doing such a practice in places with people is not advisable. Therefore, a complete ban should be put into exercise for making the experience of visiting such places pleasant.

IELTS Writing Correction

  • 1. Natural collocation major causes of death
  • 2. More natural verb reduce its use
  • 3. Agreement error health and needs to be contained
  • 4. Article error Promoting smoking
  • 5. Fixed phrase there is no doubt that
  • 6. Wrong word choice increase in litter
  • 7. Sentence fragment because they have to spend
  • 8. Verb pattern allowing such a practice
Band score breakdown

IELTS Writing Criteria Scores

Detailed feedback by IELTS writing criterion after the annotated essay.

TR

Task Response

7.0
Feedback

The essay addresses the question and gives reasons on both sides before supporting a ban. The position is clear by the end, though it should be stated earlier and defended more consistently.

Next step

State your own agreement clearly in the introduction, then use the opposing-view paragraph only to acknowledge and refute counterarguments.

CC

Coherence and Cohesion

6.5
Feedback

Ideas progress logically, but the essay is presented as one block and has some fragments, which damages readability.

Next step

Use clear paragraphs for introduction, reasons for the ban, counterarguments, and conclusion.

LR

Lexical Resource

6.5
Feedback

There is a good range of topic vocabulary, including passive smoking, revenues, and prohibition. Some word choices are unnatural or over-formal.

Next step

Prefer natural academic collocations such as reduce smoking, impose a ban, public spaces, and tax revenue.

GRA

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

6.0
Feedback

Complex structures are attempted, but sentence fragments and agreement errors occur regularly.

Next step

Edit every sentence for a finite verb and avoid starting dependent clauses as separate sentences.