Present a written argument or case to an educated reader with no specialist knowledge of the following topic. “Prevention is better than cure.” Out of a country’s health budget, a large proportion should be diverted from treatment to spending on health education and preventative measures. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Sample Response
The topic of whether to treat illness or prevent illness has grown intohas been grown to be a significant issuean inexorable one. This is about primary prevention of illness and secondary or tertiary prevention of illness.
In the first place, if a country focusesif the country is to focus on preventing illness and promoting health rather than treatingcuring illnesses, it would savethis would surely save substantial national resourcesa lot of the country’s resources since there would be fewer life-threatening conditionsthere would not be any life-threatening conditions that might need a lot of resources, such as ambulances and hospital equipmentsuch as the ambulance and also the hospital items while these resourceswhiles these could be saved for emergenciestimes of emergencies. Secondly, preventing illness will surely save considerable timesave time in the greater portion since less time would be neededenough time would not be needed to care for a single patient. Also, when illness is prevented, preventionit will improve the lives of the people since they willwould not have to spend a large sum of their hard-earned moneymonies buying drugs and paying huge hospital bills.
By contrast, treating illnessesthe curing of illnesses after they have been contracted will surely take considerableenough time. For instance, malaria can be preventedcould have been prevented by clearing choked gutters and sleeping under mosquito nets; when these measures are not takenwhen this is not done, all members of some householdssome whole household members could all be infected at the same time, and it will take a lot of time to care for all these people. Secondly, this will cause financial loss to the country. Also, it may cause further complications from illnesses.
In conclusion, I totally agree with spending on health education and preventative measures rather than treating illnesses after they have contracted to save resources, save time and also improve the lives of the people.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response maintains a clear position and uses a relevant malaria example to show how prevention can save time, money, and medical resources. However, several claims are broad or repetitive, the budget trade-off is only partly examined, and frequent awkward wording reduces precision. Develop one or two specific arguments about reallocating funds, then edit collocations and sentence structures so the reasoning is clearer and more persuasive.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear agreement is maintained and relevant benefits of prevention are presented, but the budget reallocation issue and its practical trade-offs receive limited development.
Explain how preventive funding could be increased while essential treatment services are still protected.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response has a clear overall progression, though some points repeat earlier claims and linking words are used mechanically.
Organise each body paragraph around one distinct reason and use referencing to connect supporting details more smoothly.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is adequate for the topic and includes some less common terms, but inaccurate collocations frequently weaken precision.
Replace awkward phrases such as save time in the greater portion with simple, natural combinations that express the intended meaning exactly.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Simple and complex sentence forms are both attempted, but errors in verb forms, clause control, and punctuation recur throughout.
Shorten overloaded sentences and check passive constructions and clause subjects so each relationship is grammatically clear.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Present a written argument or case to an educated reader with no specialist knowledge of the following topic. “Prevention is better than cure.” Out of a country’s health budget, a large proportion should be diverted from treatment to spending on health education and preventative measures. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.