Sport today is turning into a business and there are companies involved that sponsor sports with ever growing prize money for the sportsman as a part of their advertising. Some people agree to this because it has a good effect on the world of sports, others however disagree. Discuss and give your opinion on this issue.
Sample Response
Today it is quite common to see sporting events, teams and even individual players wearing logos on uniforms and appear in television advertising, which means commercialization has become a part of the modern game, with both positive and negative outcomes. Advocates of sports sponsorship believe that commercialization enables players financially secured and maintains professional sports to be of high quality and great entertainment. If a major company sponsors an event, it is much more likely to get prime time television coverage, which means bringing in greater advertising revenues and exposing more people to the sport. This will bring in more fans, improve the profitability of local sports clubs, which in turn helps the local economy and revives community spirit when the team is performing well. However, others claim that this has had some negative impacts as commercialization has changed the attitude of the players and jeopardised the true spirit of the game. The players no more play for the thrill and love of the game but have been lured and entangled into the vicious web of match fixing. They have become commodities to be traded and sold for extravagant sums of money and even clubs are being sold to the highest bidders. This has hampered and defamed the spirit of the game. In my opinion, though there are scandals about players using performance-enhancing drugs, which should be discouraged,these situations are under control. And it is not necessarily wrong for companies to sponsor sports with extraordinary prize money, which not only helps to promote players’ skills and ensure their livelihood but also creates high-quality sports events that generate economic growth as well as encourage people to get more exercise to keep healthy.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Make verbs parallel Original: wearing logos on uniforms and appear Suggested revision: wearing logos on uniforms and appearing Why it matters: Both actions depend on see and therefore require parallel ing forms.
- 2. Fix complement pattern Original: enables players financially secured Suggested revision: enables players to become financially secure Why it matters: Enable takes an object followed by a to-infinitive, and secure is the adjective required.
- 3. Fix maintain construction Original: maintains professional sports to be of high quality and great entertainment Suggested revision: helps maintain high-quality, entertaining professional sport Why it matters: The replacement uses the correct verb pattern and parallel modifiers.
- 4. Show resulting effects Original: which means bringing in Suggested revision: thereby bringing in Why it matters: Thereby marks the revenue and exposure as results of the coverage.
- 5. Use concise effects noun Original: negative impacts Suggested revision: negative effects Why it matters: Effects is the more direct academic noun in this context.
- 6. Use plural attitudes Original: attitude of the players Suggested revision: attitudes of players Why it matters: Multiple players can have differing attitudes, so the plural general form is appropriate.
- 7. Use no longer Original: The players no more play Suggested revision: Players no longer play Why it matters: No longer is the standard adverbial phrase for a discontinued action.
- 8. Fix drawn into phrase Original: lured and entangled into Suggested revision: drawn into Why it matters: People are drawn into a corrupt activity rather than entangled into it.
- 9. Use direct corruption term Original: vicious web Suggested revision: corrupt practice Why it matters: The direct phrase is clearer and less figurative in an academic argument.
- 10. Describe large amounts Original: extravagant sums Suggested revision: enormous sums Why it matters: Extravagant describes spending or behaviour more naturally than a sum itself.
- 11. Use natural damage verb Original: hampered and defamed the spirit Suggested revision: damaged the spirit Why it matters: Defame applies to a person's reputation and is not appropriate for the spirit of a game.
- 12. Add space after comma Original: discouraged,these Suggested revision: discouraged, these Why it matters: A space is required after the comma separating the clauses.
Suggested Rewrites
- wearing logos on uniforms and appear wearing logos on uniforms and appearing
- enables players financially secured enables players to become financially secure
- maintains professional sports to be of high quality and great entertainment helps maintain high-quality, entertaining professional sport
- which means bringing in thereby bringing in
- negative impacts negative effects
- attitude of the players attitudes of players
Why this response received Band 7.0
The essay explores both sides in substantial detail, building a strong chain from sponsorship to visibility, revenue and community benefits before examining damaged sporting values, and it ends with a clear supportive position. The main limitation is presentation and precision: the entire discussion is one paragraph and a few claims, especially the drug example, are weakly connected; prioritise paragraphing each viewpoint and tying every example directly to commercial sponsorship.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Detailed feedback by IELTS writing criterion after the annotated essay.
Task Response
Both perspectives are developed through relevant consequences and the final position is explicit, although the performance-enhancing-drug point is not clearly linked to sponsorship.
Support the opinion by directly weighing sponsorship’s financial benefits against commercial pressures such as match fixing, ownership and athlete commodification.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas move logically from benefits to harms and then the writer’s judgement, but the single paragraph obscures this strong conceptual structure.
Use separate introduction, benefits, drawbacks and opinion paragraphs, with the final position developed rather than attached to the negative discussion.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is wide and topic-specific, with effective terms for finance and sporting ethics, though several forceful collocations are unnatural or imprecise.
Refine phrases such as makes players financially secure, sustains high-quality professional sport, no longer play and undermined the spirit of the game.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The essay uses a wide range of complex structures, but noticeable errors in parallelism, complementation, agreement and punctuation remain.
Correct patterns such as players wearing logos and appearing in adverts, enables players to become financially secure, and sponsorship not only helps but also creates.
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