Many feel that students today should learn practical skills at school such as car maintenance and managing a bank account. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Some believe that useful life skills should be taught at schools in addition to the standard academic schedule. In my opinion, school is chiefly an opportunity to learn about academic subjects.
The main argument in favour of learning these skills is self-evident: they are useful. The majority of students graduate from high school well versed in a foreign language, algebra, anatomy, and classic literature but helpless when confronted with the realities of daily life. Some skills they lack include general car maintenance such as changing the oil or a flat tire, cooking their own meals, managing their finances, and doing odd jobs around the house. The majority of what they learned in school will not be useful in their life and, without attention, will eventually fade from memory. Practical skills, on the other hand, will stay fresh in their mind due to repeated application and have a more ostensibly tangible impact.
Nonetheless, practical skills can be learned at home while the best place to learn about academic subjects is school. Many students will learn the craft of daily life from their family or naturally pick it up later. Cooking will not become a daily habit when living at home and the skills are unlikely to resurface intact years later when called upon. In contrast, schools are filled with experts in their fields only available at this time of life. A quality math or history teacher will guide you in a way books alone cannot. The accumulated knowledge from all these experts may or may not be directly useful but this singular opportunity to learn about a wide breadth of subjects will inform an individual’s long-term intellectual life.
In conclusion, useful subjects are important but should not detract from the true purpose of schooling. Practical skills should be taught at schools only if they can be seamlessly worked into the curriculum and are not detrimental to academics.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use natural preposition Original: at Suggested revision: in Why it matters: 'In schools' is the natural expression for describing where teaching occurs.
- 2. Choose precise term Original: schedule Suggested revision: curriculum Why it matters: 'Curriculum' refers more precisely to the subjects and content taught at school.
- 3. Refine word choice Original: classic Suggested revision: classical Why it matters: 'Classical literature' is the more conventional term for an academic field of study.
- 4. Match plural reference Original: life Suggested revision: lives Why it matters: The plural possessive reference 'their' requires the distributive plural noun 'lives' here.
- 5. Match plural reference Original: stay fresh in their mind Suggested revision: remain fresh in their minds Why it matters: 'Students' is plural, so the corresponding noun should also be plural.
- 6. Remove contradictory qualifier Original: more ostensibly tangible impact Suggested revision: more tangible impact Why it matters: 'Ostensibly' implies only an apparent effect and weakens the intended claim that the impact is concrete.
- 7. Clarify vague phrase Original: the craft of daily life Suggested revision: practical skills for daily life Why it matters: The replacement identifies the intended skills directly and avoids an unnatural metaphor.
- 8. Use distributive plural Original: family Suggested revision: families Why it matters: The plural form is clearer because the sentence refers to many students and their separate families.
- 9. Use natural collocation Original: The accumulated knowledge from all these experts Suggested revision: The knowledge gained from these experts Why it matters: Knowledge is more naturally described as being gained from teachers than accumulated from them.
- 10. Correct collocation Original: a wide breadth of subjects Suggested revision: a broad range of subjects Why it matters: 'A broad range' is the standard collocation for describing many different subjects.
- 11. Sentence rewrite Original: Cooking will not become a daily habit when living at home and the skills are unlikely to resurface intact years later when called upon. Suggested revision: Cooking may not become a daily habit while students live at home, and the relevant skills are unlikely to remain intact until they are needed years later. Why it matters: The rewrite supplies a logical subject for the time clause and clarifies what happens to the skills.
- 12. Sentence rewrite Original: In contrast, schools are filled with experts in their fields only available at this time of life. Suggested revision: In contrast, schools provide access to subject experts who are available only at this stage of life. Why it matters: The rewrite removes the misplaced modifier and makes the intended relationship unambiguous.
Suggested Rewrites
- at in
- schedule curriculum
- classic classical
- life lives
- stay fresh in their mind remain fresh in their minds
- more ostensibly tangible impact more tangible impact
Why this response received Band 8.0
The essay sustains a clear, qualified position and develops a persuasive contrast between practical learning and the unique academic opportunities schools provide, with especially strong organisation and grammatical control. A few claims are overstated or slightly unclear, particularly the discussion of cooking and what students retain, which weakens precision. Refine those causal explanations and use one concrete example to make the argument fully convincing.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response answers the extent question directly with a consistent qualified disagreement and develops both the opposing case and its preferred position.
Clarify the cooking example and add a specific illustration of how academic study produces lasting intellectual value.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument is sequenced clearly, with purposeful paragraphing and well-controlled transitions between concession and rebuttal.
Strengthen the internal link between the home-learning claim and the following cooking example so the reasoning remains immediately transparent.
Lexical Resource
The essay uses a wide and flexible vocabulary with generally precise academic phrasing and natural topic-specific language.
Avoid slightly strained choices such as 'ostensibly tangible' and select wording that states the intended contrast more directly.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentences are varied and handled with strong control, while minor agreement and modifier issues are infrequent and non-impeding.
Polish plural reference in phrases such as 'their life' and ensure modifiers sit next to the nouns they describe.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Many feel that students today should learn practical skills at school such as car maintenance and managing a bank account. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.