Longer life spans and improvements in the health of older people suggest that people over the age of sixty-five can continue to live full and active lives. In what ways can society benefit from the contribution that older people can make?
Sample Response
With the tremendous advancement in heath care and medical science, people's life expectancy has become longer than ever before and it is believed that older people can now have a more active life than they had in the past. Some people opine that senior people can still have productive and active lives and the following essay will discuss how they can have positive contributions to the society.
Firstly, it is a fact that people are now working longer than ever before and government in many countries has been forced to increase the retirement age. Thanks to the latest healthcare facility and scientific advancement for that. Furthermore, it is also noticed that instead of becoming a housewife, many women choose to work nowadays. Consequently, working parents are leaving their children either in a daycare centre or to a babysitter. Having healthy and active grandparents will be beneficial for these families, as they could help by taking care of their grandchildren. Grandparents take great care of their grandchildren and this strengthens the family tie.
Secondly, healthy and productive senior citizens can make contributions to the societies through volunteering jobs. It is a fact that many public facilities such as local libraries need some people to do volunteering jobs. Many of the senior people love to do these kinds of activities, as they give them a chance to socialise and interact with other people. And then, by having more volunteer employees the operating cost will be reduced and the fund could be allocated for other important matters.
Thirdly, there are many professions where experienced and older people can contribute far better than young people. For instance, politicians, teachers, researchers, historian, doctors often need time to produce their best output. Thus older people can remain in these types of professions and serve the people and country for a long.
In conclusion, it is true that as the health and medicine sectors have developed, people's life span have become longer. Most of the retired people are still in healthy and active conditions. I personally believe that these people can give positive contributions to societies. They could assist their children by taking care of the grandchildren, and they could do volunteering jobs in the neighbourhood. Some of them can even serve the country in different important professions.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Correct spelling Original: heath Suggested revision: health Why it matters: Health is misspelled as heath.
- 2. Improve collocation Original: life expectancy has become longer Suggested revision: life expectancy has increased Why it matters: Life expectancy increases rather than becomes longer.
- 3. Fix number and comparison Original: have a more active life than they had Suggested revision: lead more active lives than they did Why it matters: The plural subject requires lives, and did completes the comparison naturally.
- 4. Correct collocation Original: have Suggested revision: make Why it matters: The standard collocation is make contributions.
- 5. Remove unnecessary article Original: to the society Suggested revision: to society Why it matters: Society takes no article when referring generally to the community as a whole.
- 6. Fix number agreement Original: government in many countries has Suggested revision: governments in many countries have Why it matters: The reference to multiple countries requires the plural noun and verb.
- 7. Use parallel prepositions Original: either in a daycare centre or to a babysitter Suggested revision: either at a daycare centre or with a babysitter Why it matters: The two alternatives require the appropriate parallel location phrases.
- 8. Keep tense consistent Original: could Suggested revision: can Why it matters: Can matches the present and future meaning established by will be beneficial.
- 9. Use plural noun Original: the family tie Suggested revision: family ties Why it matters: The general relationships within a family are naturally expressed with the plural ties.
- 10. Use concise collocation Original: make contributions to the societies Suggested revision: contribute to society Why it matters: Contribute to society is the natural expression for this general claim.
- 11. Use natural term Original: through volunteering jobs Suggested revision: through volunteer work Why it matters: Volunteer work is the standard uncountable phrase for unpaid service.
- 12. Choose precise noun Original: need some people Suggested revision: need volunteers Why it matters: Volunteers identifies the required people directly and precisely.
Suggested Rewrites
- heath health
- life expectancy has become longer life expectancy has increased
- have a more active life than they had lead more active lives than they did
- have make
- to the society to society
- government in many countries has governments in many countries have
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response presents a clear, relevant range of benefits and progresses logically through family support, volunteering, and professional expertise. Its main limitation is that some ideas, especially continued professional service, remain briefly developed, while frequent awkward collocations and grammatical slips reduce precision. The highest-priority improvement is to extend each benefit with a specific explanation of its wider social impact while proofreading sentence structure and word choice.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response directly answers the question with three relevant ways older people can benefit society, though the final professional contribution is only briefly developed.
Develop each main benefit with a more specific explanation or example showing its broader effect on society.
Coherence and Cohesion
The essay is logically organised into clear paragraphs, and the sequence of ideas is easy to follow despite some mechanical transitions.
Use more natural links between sentences and remove abrupt fragments such as the standalone sentence beginning with “Thanks to”.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is sufficiently varied for the topic, but recurring awkward collocations and repetition reduce precision and naturalness.
Replace phrases such as “senior people” and “volunteering jobs” with more idiomatic alternatives and vary repeated wording.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex structures communicates meaning clearly, although agreement, article, plurality, and sentence-fragment errors recur.
Proofread systematically for subject-verb agreement, countable noun forms, articles, and complete sentence construction.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Longer life spans and improvements in the health of older people suggest that people over the age of sixty-five can continue to live full and active lives. In what ways can society benefit from the contribution that older people can make?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.