Nowadays food has become easier to prepare. Has this change improved the way people live?
Sample Response
Unlike earlier times, cooking as a process has become compact and facile today. Now the question is, has this affected our lifestyle? Or is it unbiased? Gone are those days when mother used to spend hours in a hot kitchen for cooking nutritious food for her family members. Fast food being the buzzword of today, all find little or no time to cook for themselves and family. As a result, processed or easy to cook foods flood the market these days. However, this has brought some dramatic changes to the quality of our lifestyles, though with a few health concerns as discussed below.
In this era of globalisation, where work and time dictate your day, seldom does one find time to cook a full course lunch or dinner. Since both parents work urban world witness more and more children thriving on fast foods like burger, sandwich etc. It is natural that parents are not getting enough time to cook more ethnic food for them; instead, they work more to earn more, thus improving their lifestyle. People find more time to spend with family than before. An exemplification would be that of a busy office lady late from work, prepares easy cook meal for dinner and prefers to spend time from the kitchen with children. The improvement in the system would be a stronger family bonding! Likewise, a student finds these easy foods a real boon during their hostel days when both time and skill to cook are scanty.
Travellers are another category who admires easy to prepare meals, like cooking during a picnic or a business tour would be cumbersome. This also facilitates more family picnics and outing together. A quick breakfast like an egg sandwich would be the best buy for a student on that given exam day! So would be it for a working mother on an office meeting day! So it is a matter of fact, that the new trend in food preparation has had an impact on our lifestyle. It has helped us to improve our quality of life.
Now turning on the coin, do these fast foods or easy to cook meals pose a health threat? Many studies show a steep climb in the number of cancerous patients in the United States in recent years. One main factor considered responsible for this is the frozen and fast foods. The burgers and sandwiches come with a hand full of issues that can deprive you health wise. A majority of fast food is prepared in oil with saturated fats that can cause problems to your body systemic circulation. Consumed on a daily basis, it can lead you to cardiac problems even.
To conclude I would say that though it comes with a few health concerns, easy to cook trend has definitely improvised our quality of life. Now much depends on our conscientious to use fast foods only when it is an absolute necessity- for example on a busy day at the office!
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use natural descriptors Original: compact and facile Suggested revision: simpler and more convenient Why it matters: These adjectives accurately describe easier food preparation.
- 2. Use the general plural Original: mother Suggested revision: mothers Why it matters: The plural form is required for this general statement.
- 3. Remove the preposition Original: for cooking nutritious food Suggested revision: cooking nutritious food Why it matters: Spend time is followed by the -ing form without for.
- 4. Add the possessive Original: themselves and family Suggested revision: themselves and their families Why it matters: Their is needed before families, which should be plural in this general statement.
- 5. Keep perspective consistent Original: your Suggested revision: one's Why it matters: One's matches the general pronoun used later in the sentence.
- 6. Clarify the food type Original: more ethnic food Suggested revision: more traditional meals Why it matters: Traditional meals conveys the intended home-cooked food more clearly.
- 7. Clarify the description Original: busy office lady late from work Suggested revision: busy office worker returning late from work Why it matters: The replacement uses a neutral occupational term and supplies the participle needed for the description.
- 8. Correct the preposition Original: spend time from the kitchen Suggested revision: spend time away from the kitchen Why it matters: Away from expresses time not spent in the kitchen.
- 9. Use the natural noun Original: a stronger family bonding Suggested revision: stronger family bonds Why it matters: Family bonds is the natural countable expression for closer relationships.
- 10. Use natural phrasing Original: during their hostel days Suggested revision: while living in a hostel Why it matters: This phrase states the living situation directly.
- 11. Fix agreement and reference Original: category who admires Suggested revision: group that appreciates Why it matters: Group takes a singular verb, and that refers to a group.
- 12. Use plural nouns Original: outing Suggested revision: outings Why it matters: Both coordinated count nouns should be plural.
Suggested Rewrites
- compact and facile simpler and more convenient
- mother mothers
- for cooking nutritious food cooking nutritious food
- themselves and family themselves and their families
- your one's
- more ethnic food more traditional meals
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response’s strongest feature is a clear conclusion that easier food preparation improves life overall, supported by varied examples involving working parents, students and travellers while acknowledging health concerns. Its main limitation is lack of control: the essay is overlong and repetitive, sometimes conflates convenient food with fast food, and contains frequent language errors. Prioritise a tighter argument that distinguishes convenience from nutritional quality and uses fewer, better-developed examples.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The essay clearly answers the question, develops several practical benefits and acknowledges a health drawback, but some examples repeat the same time-saving point and the fast-food distinction remains blurred.
Define easy-to-prepare food separately from unhealthy fast food, then develop one family-life benefit and one health limitation in depth.
Coherence and Cohesion
Paragraphs broadly progress from context to family and travel benefits, health concerns and conclusion, but repetition, rhetorical questions and loosely connected examples weaken focus.
Condense the benefits into one or two focused paragraphs and use a single transition to the health counterargument before concluding.
Lexical Resource
The response attempts a broad range, but frequent inaccurate choices such as “compact and facile,” “unbiased,” “exemplification,” “turning on the coin,” “improvised” and “conscientious” reduce precision.
Use natural terms such as “quicker and simpler,” “beneficial,” “example,” “on the other hand,” “improved” and “judgement.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A variety of structures is attempted, but agreement, articles, countability, punctuation and clause construction errors occur frequently while the overall meaning remains understandable.
Check subject-verb agreement and noun forms, and rewrite the example sentences with one clear subject and finite verb each.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Nowadays food has become easier to prepare. Has this change improved the way people live?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.