Many young people leave school with a negative attitude towards learning. What are the possible reasons for this? Suggest some solutions to address this problem.
Sample Response
Many young people, nowadays, complete their school education with a negative outlook towards learning and education as a whole. This essay will identify the root causes of this trend, and propose a couple of effective solutions to address this situation.
The first reason why many youths possess a negative mentality about learning is that most schools focus on learners’ academic performance while putting very little emphasis on developing their practical and important life skills. This makes learning less interesting while making youths wonder about the fruitfulness of learning. Oftentimes, when students finish school, they realise that practical skills are more important than academic achievements in society and job sectors; thus school-leavers are disappointed and lose their motivation to learn more. On top of that, the majority of teachers still use traditional methodologies in teaching which encourage and promote memorisation techniques for exams. As a result, students feel that learning is an arduous process, which is not stimulating at all. The result is rejecting attitudes toward further learning by school graduates.
This problem could be solved to a great extent by adopting some pragmatic measures. The most effective solution, in my opinion, is that education must be harnessed to students’ needs for their future, and educators prioritise that when teaching in schools. Essentially, schools have to look at how to meet the demand of a changing society and provide more practical skills and knowledge to their pupils. Since teachers’ pedagogy style directly determines whether students enjoy learning or not, teachers should kindle students’ interest in learning by applying more engaging methods in the classroom. Finally, youths should be rewarded for their endeavour to learn and apply their knowledge, and the government can play a vital role here. For instance, they could be engaged in teaching juniors, working in libraries, writing in newspapers, and working in other places where they can constantly learn, earn and use their skills.
To conclude, a large number of young people do not like learning after they leave school due to their negative attitude towards learning. I believe, effective measures, such as - changing the focus of schools, modifying teachers’ approaches to teaching, and engaging youths in works where they can earn and learn - could reverse the trend.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Remove unnecessary commas Original: young people, nowadays, complete Suggested revision: young people nowadays complete Why it matters: Nowadays is integrated into the clause and should not be enclosed by commas here.
- 2. Use attitude toward Original: negative outlook towards Suggested revision: negative attitude toward Why it matters: Attitude toward is the standard collocation for a disposition to learning.
- 3. Remove list comma Original: trend, and propose Suggested revision: trend and propose Why it matters: A comma is unnecessary between two verbs sharing the same subject.
- 4. Use natural collocation Original: negative mentality about Suggested revision: negative attitude toward Why it matters: Attitude toward learning is more natural and precise than mentality about learning.
- 5. Remove redundant adjective Original: practical and important life skills Suggested revision: practical life skills Why it matters: Life skills already implies importance, making important unnecessary.
- 6. Fix clause coordination Original: less interesting while making youths wonder Suggested revision: less interesting and makes young people question Why it matters: The two effects need parallel finite verbs, and question takes the following noun phrase naturally.
- 7. Use value of learning Original: fruitfulness Suggested revision: value Why it matters: Value is the natural noun for the perceived usefulness of education.
- 8. Use workplace term Original: in society and job sectors Suggested revision: in society and the workplace Why it matters: The workplace is the natural collective term for employment contexts.
- 9. Add connector comma Original: thus school-leavers Suggested revision: thus, school-leavers Why it matters: The sentence adverb thus should be followed by a comma.
- 10. Use concise teaching term Original: traditional methodologies in teaching Suggested revision: traditional teaching methods Why it matters: This is the conventional and concise phrase for instructional approaches.
- 11. Remove repeated meaning Original: encourage and promote memorisation techniques Suggested revision: encourage memorisation Why it matters: Encourage and promote duplicate one another, while techniques is unnecessary here.
- 12. Use concise paired adjectives Original: arduous process, which is not stimulating at all Suggested revision: arduous and unstimulating process Why it matters: The replacement states both qualities directly without a repetitive relative clause.
Suggested Rewrites
- young people, nowadays, complete young people nowadays complete
- negative outlook towards negative attitude toward
- trend, and propose trend and propose
- negative mentality about negative attitude toward
- practical and important life skills practical life skills
- less interesting while making youths wonder less interesting and makes young people question
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response fully addresses both causes and solutions, with especially strong development of how academically narrow curricula and traditional teaching can discourage further learning. Its main limitation is occasional imprecision and slightly cumbersome phrasing in otherwise sophisticated language; the highest-priority improvement is to refine collocations and sentence construction so that every proposed solution and example is expressed with maximum clarity.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Both parts are directly and thoroughly addressed through well-developed causes and relevant, practical solutions.
Strengthen the final government-employment example by explaining more explicitly how each activity rebuilds motivation to learn.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress clearly from causes to matched solutions, with effective paragraphing and generally controlled cohesive devices.
Reduce minor repetition within the causes paragraph and make the relationship between each solution and its corresponding cause even more explicit.
Lexical Resource
The response demonstrates a wide, flexible topic vocabulary, although a few collocations such as rejecting attitudes and pedagogy style are unnatural.
Refine occasional word combinations by using natural alternatives such as resistance to further learning and teaching approach.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide variety of complex structures is used with strong control, despite occasional awkward coordination and punctuation.
Polish sentence joins and comma placement, particularly around reporting clauses and coordinated recommendations.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Many young people leave school with a negative attitude towards learning. What are the possible reasons for this? Suggest some solutions to address this problem.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.