Some people think certain prisoners should be made to do unpaid community work instead of being put behind bars. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Punishment for a crime is meant to discipline offenders while also isolating them from society by taking away their freedom and giving them a chance to habilitate during prison time. Some people opine that such punishment is brutal and should be more lenient, like awarding community work to minor offenders. I disagree with this view because jail time is given only after a proper investigation is made, and light punishments for crimes can not be effective in curbing crimes in many countries.
Our judicial system works systematically and considers the intent of committing a crime. Thus a drunk driver who crosses the speed limit and someone who does so to reach a hospital to treat an ill elderly are not treated equally. And light offenders are always given a chance to defend themselves. They are often just fined an amount of money rather than being behind bars. Since we already have a system to punish serious offenders and just reprimand light offenders, we do not need to award community work to certain criminals.
Moreover, community work, as an outcome of a crime, fails to rehabilitate a convict mainly because such works are too light to make the offender regret his or her actions. The jails are made to reform someone when that person is considered a threat to society. And if they are not isolated, properly counselled, and given the time to repent, they will probably commit even bigger crimes in the future. For instance, according to a recent study, almost 30% of juveniles who are just given community or voluntary work for their minor offences often end up committing bigger crimes within a year.
To conclude, our law and judicial system consider the intent and circumstances of a crime and award punishments accordingly. So we do not need community work for crimes because this approach lacks the main objective of rehabilitating criminals.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use correct verb Original: habilitate Suggested revision: rehabilitate Why it matters: 'Rehabilitate' is the correct verb for reforming an offender.
- 2. Use legal collocation Original: awarding community work Suggested revision: assigning community service Why it matters: Offenders are 'assigned community service', while 'award' normally describes something desirable.
- 3. Correct the collocation Original: made Suggested revision: conducted Why it matters: An investigation is conventionally 'conducted' rather than 'made'.
- 4. Use precise adjective Original: light Suggested revision: lenient Why it matters: Punishments are described as 'lenient' rather than 'light' when they are insufficiently severe.
- 5. Clarify intended meaning Original: the intent of committing a crime Suggested revision: the intent behind a crime Why it matters: The revision refers more directly to the offender's purpose or motivation.
- 6. Complete noun phrase Original: an ill elderly Suggested revision: an ill elderly person Why it matters: 'Elderly' functions as an adjective here and requires a following noun.
- 7. Remove redundancy Original: fined an amount of money Suggested revision: fined Why it matters: The verb 'fined' already means required to pay an amount of money.
- 8. Restore parallel structure Original: being Suggested revision: put Why it matters: This form is parallel with 'fined' after the shared auxiliary 'are'.
- 9. Use precise legal wording Original: award community work to certain criminals Suggested revision: assign community service to certain offenders Why it matters: 'Assign community service' is the appropriate expression for this sentence.
- 10. Treat work as uncountable Original: such works are Suggested revision: such work is Why it matters: 'Work' is uncountable in this context and takes a singular verb.
- 11. Use natural wording Original: The jails are made to reform someone Suggested revision: Prisons are intended to reform people Why it matters: The revision states the institutional purpose more naturally and avoids an unnecessarily vague singular pronoun.
- 12. Use precise comparison Original: commit even bigger crimes Suggested revision: commit even more serious crimes Why it matters: Crime severity is more precisely described as 'more serious' rather than 'bigger'.
Suggested Rewrites
- habilitate rehabilitate
- awarding community work assigning community service
- made conducted
- light lenient
- the intent of committing a crime the intent behind a crime
- an ill elderly an ill elderly person
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response maintains a clear disagreement and develops two relevant lines of reasoning, supported by a concrete illustration of reoffending. Some claims about how judicial systems treat minor offenders are overgeneralised, and the argument does not fully examine when community service might be appropriate. Strengthen the case by qualifying these assumptions and directly comparing imprisonment with community work for clearly defined categories of prisoner.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response directly addresses the proposition, sustains a clear position, and develops relevant reasons, though several claims are broad or insufficiently qualified.
Define which prisoners the argument concerns and compare the rehabilitative value of prison and community work more explicitly.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas are logically sequenced in clear paragraphs, and cohesive devices generally guide the reader smoothly despite some repetitive sentence openings.
Vary transitions and make the relationship between the first body paragraph's judicial-process claims and the central comparison more explicit.
Lexical Resource
A sufficiently varied vocabulary conveys the argument clearly, with occasional awkward choices and collocations such as references to awarding community work and light offenders.
Replace imprecise legal collocations with natural terms such as sentencing offenders to community service and people convicted of minor offences.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses varied complex structures with generally good control, although occasional article, agreement, pronoun, and countability errors occur.
Proofread noun phrases and references carefully, especially expressions such as an elderly person, community work, and plural subjects.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people think certain prisoners should be made to do unpaid community work instead of being put behind bars. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.