Air traffic is increasingly leading to more noise, pollution, and airport construction. One reason for this is the growth in low-cost passenger flights, often to holiday destinations. Some people say that the government should try to reduce air traffic by taxing it more heavily. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Sample Response
In recent yearsOver the recent years, the popularity of air services has been in demand. Some people claim that air traffic causes inevitable pollution; others see the other side of the coin. I disagree that government bodies are obliged to decrease air traffic throughusing taxation.
To begin with, if the state raises taxesincreases the taxes, it will significantly affect people on lower incomesaffect lower-class people. They will not travel as much as they did before because they would be unable to afford ticketsbecause of the inability to afford tickets. In fact, many families with children will suffer. Some parents might have promised to take their childrentake the child to the popular resort “Disney World”to popular resort ”Disney World” in the USA or to ski in the mountains in Eastern Europe, but will be forced to break that promiseforced to refuse them. In addition to this, taxing only people on lower incomestaxing only lower-class people will emphasise the severity of other issues today—the inequality between social groupsissues of these days- the inequalities between humans. It is undoubtedly imposing taxes only on several numbers of people is unfair. As a result, this mayAs a result it may make them feel humiliated and dissatisfied with air traveldiscontent with the air services.
Secondly, governments need to consider reexamining the approach to environmental protectionapproach to the eco-system. There is a variety of pollutions, for instance traffic from buses, cars and trains should be the primary concern. It is unreasonable to suggest that this is a more common problemit is more common problem which requires more attention. Many cosmopolitan cities are more likely to be polluted byget polluted from the aforementioned sources of pollutionabove mentioned types of pollutions than air pollution. Moreover, this pollution can leadit can lead to long-term effects on their health, especially on the respiratory systemon respiratory system.
One could draw the conclusion that the taxation should be equally distributed according to income levels among all classes of people. Governments ought to identify the problems related to traffic and select the appropriate ones to work on.
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response presents a clear disagreement and organises two discernible reasons, with the concern about affordability receiving useful illustration. Its main limitation is that it assumes the tax would target poorer travellers and gives limited attention to the environmental case for reducing flights, while the conclusion partly shifts position. The priority is to develop a direct rebuttal to the proposed tax and maintain that position consistently throughout.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear position is presented, but supporting ideas are unevenly developed and partly rest on the unsupported assumption that only poorer people would be taxed.
Address the proposed air-travel tax directly by weighing its environmental purpose against two fully explained objections.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response has a recognisable introduction, body progression, and conclusion, although some links between claims are unclear and the final position shifts.
Use each paragraph to advance one explicit reason that connects directly to the thesis, then restate the same position in the conclusion.
Lexical Resource
There is enough vocabulary to discuss taxation, inequality, transport, and health, but frequent awkward or inaccurate collocations reduce precision.
Replace imprecise phrases such as broad class labels and pluralised uncountable nouns with natural, topic-specific wording.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response attempts a range of sentence structures, but recurring article, agreement, punctuation, and clause-construction errors weaken control.
Proofread complex sentences for complete clause structure, correct articles, and clear pronoun reference before adding further complexity.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Air traffic is increasingly leading to more noise, pollution, and airport construction. One reason for this is the growth in low-cost passenger flights, often to holiday destinations. Some people say that the government should try to reduce air traffic by taxing it more heavily. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.