Some think that governments should tax unhealthy foods to encourage people to eat healthier. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Some think that heavy-handed governmental taxation is the only way to compel healthier eating. In my opinion, while this makes rational sense, its actual effectiveness is questionable.
Those that argue in favour of these taxes can point to a logical chain of suppositions. Though taxes on unhealthy foods are rare, there is the occasional mandated price hike for sugary drinks and fast food, smoking is an instructive corollary. Several decades after research showed that smoking causes cancer, governments were able to push through legislation to tax cigarettes heavily. The result was that those already addicted to smoking continued to smoke but many people did not pick up the habit to begin with. Proponents argue this would also be the case when it comes to foods known to cause cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer. Many would eat them despite higher prices but the next generation would become more health conscious and that would further trickle down to their children.
Though the above argument is well reasoned, people will still buy luxuries. There is strong evidence for this dating back centuries. After the war of independence from Britain, the newly formed United States instituted direly needed taxes on luxuries including whiskey and chocolate. The purpose of the taxes was to raise money, not to lower consumption of those products. The unpopular acts were internally vindicated when people continued to buy luxuries along the same growth trend, enabling them to increase the national budget. Even though cutting down on purely pleasurable products makes disinterested sense, people are more swayed by instant gratification than cold calculation.
In conclusion, taxes on unhealthy foods would not be an effective measure against their consumption. Instead, governments should invest more in healthy school lunches and making healthy products more widely available to attack the problem at its root source.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use human relative Original: that Suggested revision: who Why it matters: Use 'who' as the relative pronoun when the antecedent refers to people.
- 2. Choose natural collocation Original: suppositions Suggested revision: assumptions Why it matters: 'Chain of assumptions' is the more natural expression for linked premises in an argument.
- 3. Name event precisely Original: war of independence from Britain Suggested revision: American War of Independence Why it matters: The proper name identifies the historical event more precisely and concisely.
- 4. Fix word choice Original: direly Suggested revision: urgently Why it matters: 'Urgently needed' is the standard collocation in this context.
- 5. Correct meaning Original: disinterested Suggested revision: rational Why it matters: 'Disinterested' means impartial and does not express logical reasoning here.
- 6. Use natural phrasing Original: measure against their consumption Suggested revision: measure for reducing their consumption Why it matters: This phrasing states the intended purpose of the measure more naturally.
- 7. Make structure parallel Original: invest more in healthy school lunches and making healthy products Suggested revision: invest more in providing healthy school lunches and making healthy products Why it matters: The coordinated items need matching gerund forms after 'invest in'.
- 8. Remove redundancy Original: root source Suggested revision: root Why it matters: 'Root' already means the underlying source, so 'source' is redundant.
- 9. Sentence rewrite Original: Though taxes on unhealthy foods are rare, there is the occasional mandated price hike for sugary drinks and fast food, smoking is an instructive corollary. Suggested revision: Though taxes on unhealthy foods are rare, occasional mandated price hikes for sugary drinks and fast food do occur, and smoking provides an instructive comparison. Why it matters: This rewrite removes the comma splice and clarifies the relationship between the two examples.
- 10. Sentence rewrite Original: Many would eat them despite higher prices but the next generation would become more health conscious and that would further trickle down to their children. Suggested revision: Many would continue to eat these foods despite higher prices, but the next generation would become more health-conscious, and this awareness would pass to their children. Why it matters: The rewrite clarifies the pronouns and separates the stages of the prediction.
- 11. Strengthen example link Suggested revision: Connect the historical example more explicitly to the claim about continued unhealthy-food purchases before discussing consumer psychology. Why it matters: A clearer link would improve progression from the luxury-tax example back to the paragraph's main point.
Suggested Rewrites
- that who
- suppositions assumptions
- war of independence from Britain American War of Independence
- direly urgently
- disinterested rational
- measure against their consumption measure for reducing their consumption
Why this response received Band 8.0
The essay maintains a clear position while examining the strongest rationale for taxation and then rebutting it with an extended historical example, producing a persuasive and well-controlled argument. The main limitation is occasional strained wording and one overloaded sentence that briefly obscures the relationship between examples. Refining collocations and separating densely packed claims would make an already sophisticated response more precise and effortless to read.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The position is clear throughout, and both the rationale for taxation and the counterargument are developed in substantial depth.
Make the historical evidence more directly comparable to unhealthy-food taxation by explicitly explaining the limits of the analogy.
Coherence and Cohesion
Paragraphing and progression are highly effective, with ideas linked logically across a sustained argument.
Split the long sentence introducing the smoking comparison so each relationship is immediately clear.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is wide-ranging and sophisticated, though a few collocations sound strained or imprecise.
Replace unnatural phrases such as “internally vindicated” and “makes disinterested sense” with more idiomatic, exact wording.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of complex structures is used accurately, with only isolated punctuation and sentence-boundary lapses.
Check sentences containing several clauses for comma splices and divide them when independent ideas compete for attention.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some think that governments should tax unhealthy foods to encourage people to eat healthier. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.