Organized tour to remote areas and community is increasingly popular. Is it a positive or negative development for the local people and the environment?
Sample Response
In recent years, there has been a growing tendency for tourists to travel to remote locations and communities on organised tours. This has some positive impacts on the local people, but I think the detrimental effects on the environment are more significant and that the issue is more of a negative development.
The financial and socio-cultural benefits for the locals in remote areas are evident. Tourists visiting these regions have a high demand for goods and services, and are mostly willing to pay higher than average prices. This helps to boost local economies in remote areas and eventually enhance living standards of the local people. Regarding the socio-cultural aspects, Travelers from different cultures can provide ethnic people in remote areas, who are almost completely isolated from the outside world, with a lot of experiences through their interactions with one another, which can help these local residents to broaden knowledge about a more civilized society.
However, the hordes of tourists to remote regions still leave severe impacts on the environment in these areas. In fact, tourists often litter where ever they go and do not bother to clean after themselves in areas they have visited. This may lead to such conditions as dirty roads or clogged sewage systems in these places, which negatively and directly affects local people’s living conditions. In terms of indirect effects, I believe that the indigenous people have to sacrifice their natural resources to accommodate tourists’ insatiable demands. In several mountainous areas of Vietnam, local people cut down vast areas of forest to make handicrafts or furniture for tourists. These acts can contribute to the environmental deterioration in remote areas.
In conclusion, though the economy and societies in remote areas can benefit tremendously from organised tourism, I think that the negative environmental consequences that this situation brings are far more significant.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Name the trend clearly Original: the issue is more of a negative development Suggested revision: the trend is negative overall Why it matters: Trend refers more directly to the development described in the task.
- 2. Use natural collocation Original: enhance living standards of the local people Suggested revision: raise the living standards of local people Why it matters: Raise living standards is the conventional collocation in this context.
- 3. Use neutral wording Original: the hordes of tourists Suggested revision: large numbers of tourists Why it matters: Hordes is emotive, while the replacement maintains an appropriately formal tone.
- 4. Correct the collocation Original: leave Suggested revision: have Why it matters: English uses have an impact on rather than leave an impact on.
- 5. Join the word Original: where ever Suggested revision: wherever Why it matters: Wherever is written as one word in this use.
- 6. Complete the phrasal verb Original: clean after themselves Suggested revision: clean up after themselves Why it matters: Clean up after is the required phrasal verb for removing one's mess.
- 7. Choose precise nouns Original: such conditions as dirty roads Suggested revision: problems such as littered roads Why it matters: Problems and littered describe the stated consequence more precisely.
- 8. Fix subject agreement Original: which negatively and directly affects Suggested revision: which directly and negatively affect Why it matters: The relative clause refers to the plural conditions, so it requires affect.
- 9. State resource loss precisely Original: have to sacrifice their natural resources Suggested revision: may deplete their natural resources Why it matters: Deplete expresses the reduction of natural resources more precisely.
- 10. Match plural references Original: the economy and societies in remote areas Suggested revision: local economies and communities in remote areas Why it matters: The plural nouns accurately refer to the multiple remote areas discussed.
- 11. Use concise wording Original: tendency Suggested revision: trend Why it matters: Trend expresses the increasing pattern more concisely.
- 12. Improve the collocation Original: positive impacts on the local people Suggested revision: positive effects on local people Why it matters: Effects on is more natural and concise in this context.
Suggested Rewrites
- the issue is more of a negative development the trend is negative overall
- enhance living standards of the local people raise the living standards of local people
- the hordes of tourists large numbers of tourists
- leave have
- where ever wherever
- clean after themselves clean up after themselves
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response gives a clear judgement and develops relevant economic, social, and environmental consequences with a concrete example from Vietnam. Its main limitation is uneven language control: awkward collocations and a few overloaded sentences reduce precision despite the strong vocabulary range. The highest-priority improvement is to express each causal link in shorter, more natural sentences and check agreement carefully.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The essay directly answers the question with a consistent negative judgement while examining benefits for residents and harm to the environment.
Develop the final weighing more explicitly by explaining why the environmental damage outweighs the economic and social gains.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response follows a clear paragraph structure and logical contrast, although some long sentences contain too many linked ideas.
Break the socio-cultural discussion into shorter units so each claim, explanation, and consequence has a clearer progression.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and topic-appropriate, but recurring awkward combinations such as leave severe impacts and provide people with experiences limit precision.
Build control of common cause-and-effect collocations, including have an impact, gain experience, and meet tourist demand.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The essay uses varied complex structures successfully, but agreement, punctuation, capitalisation, and sentence-boundary errors recur.
Check subject-verb agreement and divide heavily embedded relative-clause sentences to improve grammatical accuracy and control.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Organized tour to remote areas and community is increasingly popular. Is it a positive or negative development for the local people and the environment?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.