People work because they need money to live. What are some other reasons that people work? Discuss one or more of these reasons. Use specific examples and details to support your answer.
Sample Response
People at the beginning of human historyin the beginning of the human history started working because they needed food, shelter and other very basic human needs to survive. The primary reason for working, even in this modern era, is to earn money to survive. However, with time the definition of survival has changed and many luxuries have become necessitiesluxuries of life have become the necessity. Thus, in my opinion, peopleThus in my opinion people primarily works to earn money. However, self-contentment, helping others, saving for future generationsgeneration and spending quality time are some other important reasons why people workimportant reasons people work. First of all, self-contentment and self-realization are two important factors that motivate people to workfactors people work even though they have sufficient money. These kinds of people work to invent something new and try to satisfy their unquenchable thirstthrust for knowledge. Their curiosity, hard work and talent drive them to invent something new that helps millions of others throughout the ages. Scientists, artists, mathematicians, astronomers and explorers throughout historythroughout the history have done so to make this world a better place. No doubt some of them had personal ambitions, but self-contentment and curiosity were the main driving forces for them to work hard. Second, saving for the future, both for their old age and for the future generation, is another reason people work. Someone who has a lot of money cannot guarantee that it will remain available indefinitelyremain the same for ages. Thus many people work to save for a rainy daysave for the rainy days and tothe make sure that their future generation will have a better standard of livingbetter standards of life. Furthermore, workingFurther working on something that we enjoy provides far more fulfilmentensures far more quality time than being idle. Thus many of us work because we enjoy what we do. Money is not the primary motivation for working in this case. Finally, doing something better or helping othersother is another important reason many of us work. If we look back through historylook back in the history, we will find numerous famous people who left their comfortconform zone and worked for the betterment of others. They were selfless people who could have easily accumulated wealth but instead they vowed to helpthey have vowed to help others. In conclusion, self-contentment, curiosity and selflessness of many are the three important reasons we have a different world than we had in the primitive ages. Some people work to save for the future while others work to help otherswhile others to help others and to achieve self-realisationfulfil self-realizations.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The essay directly answers the question through a broad, relevant range of motivations, and its discussion of curiosity, future security, enjoyment, and service to others shows clear sustained development. The main limitation is precision, as examples remain general and recurring lexical and grammatical slips weaken otherwise mature ideas. Develop fewer motivations through concrete individuals or situations, then proofread collocations, agreement, articles, and parallel structures.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response explores several relevant non-financial motivations in depth and maintains a clear position, although the supporting examples are broad rather than specific.
Select two or three central motivations and illustrate each with a concrete person, profession, or realistic situation to deepen the support.
Coherence and Cohesion
The ideas progress logically through clearly signposted motivations and return to them in the conclusion, but the one-paragraph presentation and mechanical transitions limit organisation.
Give each major motivation its own paragraph and use logical links based on meaning rather than relying mainly on numbered sequencing.
Lexical Resource
The essay shows a broad range of vocabulary for motivation, discovery, security, and altruism, but recurrent collocational and word-choice errors reduce precision.
Correct phrases such as thirst for knowledge, throughout history, comfort zone, help others, and self-fulfilment, and avoid repeating work and future generation.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
There is a useful variety of complex structures, but agreement, article, plural, parallelism, and tense errors recur across the response.
Check every subject-verb pairing, use articles consistently, and keep coordinated structures grammatically parallel when listing reasons or consequences.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
People work because they need money to live. What are some other reasons that people work? Discuss one or more of these reasons. Use specific examples and details to support your answer.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.