Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? A zoo has no useful purpose. Use specific reasons and examples to explain your answer.
Sample Response
Keeping wild animals in cages for public exhibition is a tradition that people are performing for a long and for majority people this is an amusement and educational purpose for kids while others think it to be a very inhuman act. This is a much-debated issue and I personally find no usefulness of a zoological garden where these animals and birds of different kinds are kept for public entertainment. First of all, the idea of keeping wild animals in cages is really a brutal one and human should not be proud of act like this. Who has given us the power and authority to forcefully bring animals to zoos and then being hilarious watching their activities? Do our weapon and brain makes us superior and powerful enough to decide the lives of other species? No, if we are superior to those wild animals, it is our humanity and superiority of thinking power and where would that humanity is when we encage other species? There are thousands of amusement parks and children parks and we should not make a zoo that would only represent our brutality and the outcry of the animals.
Have we ever though if a more intelligent species arrives in our territory and encases us like we do to other animals, how pathetic that would be for us? Many people would say that those are educational purposes and to let the kids know about those animals. But in a zoo what we see are encaged animals with their dismay and helplessness. Children would never learn the true nature of those animals when they would learn it from a zoo. Animal Planet and Discovery channels are two better alternatives for children to learn about those wild animals than the zoo. Zoo is many countries are used for commercial purposes and no matter what the authorities do; they can’t ensure a free life for a bird which should be flying in the sky rather than trying to escape from the cage. In conclusion, the zoo serves no useful purpose and there are no good reasons to put the animals and birds in cages.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Correct tense and verb Original: people are performing for a long Suggested revision: people have practised for a long time Why it matters: The present perfect and 'practised' correctly describe a tradition continuing over time.
- 2. Complete the noun phrase Original: for majority people Suggested revision: for the majority of people Why it matters: 'The majority of people' is the required grammatical construction.
- 3. Clarify the function Original: this is an amusement and educational purpose for kids Suggested revision: this provides entertainment and education for children Why it matters: The revision uses parallel nouns and expresses the intended functions naturally.
- 4. Use concise verb pattern Original: others think it to be Suggested revision: others consider it Why it matters: 'Consider it' is the natural verb pattern before an adjective complement.
- 5. Use natural collocation Original: find no usefulness of a zoological garden Suggested revision: see no value in zoological gardens Why it matters: 'See no value in' expresses the intended judgement naturally.
- 6. Use plural noun Original: human Suggested revision: humans Why it matters: The general reference to people requires the plural noun 'humans'.
- 7. Use plural count noun Original: act Suggested revision: acts Why it matters: The countable noun 'act' needs a determiner or a plural form here.
- 8. Use correct adverb Original: forcefully Suggested revision: forcibly Why it matters: 'Forcibly' is the standard adverb meaning by force.
- 9. Correct the meaning Original: then being hilarious watching Suggested revision: then laugh while watching Why it matters: 'Hilarious' describes something funny and cannot mean that people laugh.
- 10. Fix number and agreement Original: Do our weapon and brain makes Suggested revision: Do our weapons and brains make Why it matters: Plural nouns fit the general claim, and 'do' takes the base verb 'make'.
- 11. Use natural phrasing Original: superiority of thinking power Suggested revision: superior capacity for thought Why it matters: The revised phrase expresses intellectual ability clearly and naturally.
- 12. Use standard verb Original: encage Suggested revision: cage Why it matters: 'Cage' is the standard verb for confining animals.
Suggested Rewrites
- people are performing for a long people have practised for a long time
- for majority people for the majority of people
- this is an amusement and educational purpose for kids this provides entertainment and education for children
- others think it to be others consider it
- find no usefulness of a zoological garden see no value in zoological gardens
- human humans
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response maintains a forceful, consistent rejection of zoos and develops relevant concerns about animal suffering, weak educational value, and commercial exploitation. Its strongest feature is the clear ethical position, but much of the support relies on rhetorical questions and broad assertions rather than specific evidence, while language errors are frequent. Prioritise replacing the rhetorical sequence with one concrete example and a carefully explained rebuttal of conservation or education claims.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear position is maintained and supported through relevant ethical and educational arguments, although much of the support remains general or rhetorical.
Address a plausible conservation or education benefit of zoos and rebut it with one specific, fully explained example.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument progresses from cruelty to educational value and alternatives, but two oversized paragraphs and repeated rhetorical questions weaken organisation.
Divide the response into focused body paragraphs and use topic sentences to distinguish animal welfare, education, and commercialisation.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is sufficient for animal welfare and ethics, but frequent inaccurate choices and collocations reduce precision and naturalness.
Use precise phrases such as ‘kept in captivity’, ‘educational benefit’, ‘observe their natural behaviour’, and ‘commercial exploitation’.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The writer attempts varied complex forms, but frequent errors in agreement, verb patterns, articles, questions, and clause construction limit control.
Replace long rhetorical questions with shorter declarative sentences and check subject-verb agreement and auxiliary-verb patterns carefully.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? A zoo has no useful purpose. Use specific reasons and examples to explain your answer.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.