Foreign visitors should pay more than local visitors for cultural and historical attractions. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Sample Response
Maybe everybody has experienced that they have to pay more in comparison to local people to enter a museum or zoo. For some people, it can be acceptable while others may dislike it very much. Some people advocate it while others may object to itobject it. In this essay, I will try to put myself in the position of both groups and discuss the pros and conscons and pros of each option. Firstly, when foreign visitors pay morethe foreign visitors pay more for a cultural and historical attraction, it will bring more income and economic benefits for the owners of that attraction (that city, country etc.). Further, the more money is gathered through the attraction, the more servicesservice the provider can give to the tourists. They can use the money to improve the facilities offered to the tourists like translations in several languages, brochures, headphones (for audio guideslistening translation). Moreover, they can educate local people about the attraction and hire them as tourist guides to assist visitors to offer a better understanding of that attraction. On the other handside, those who disagree with this opinion may say that this discrimination (that tourists must pay more than local people) may lead to a misunderstanding and they (the tourists) may think that the system is abusing them. This feeling of being exploitedfeeling of abusing may result in dissatisfaction and a reduction in the number of touristsreduction in the number of tourists. Moreover, the fewer touristsless amount of tourist, the less income will be brought to the attraction. For instance, The British National Museum is free for everybody to enter while the Louvre Museum in Paris charges visitors a high entrance feecosts a lot of money for visitors to enter, and both have a lot of visitors each year. I believe that the managementstaff of each attraction must calculate the benefits and drawbacks of each measure (price difference in this case) and evaluate the consequences. To conclude, it is difficult to suggest "one universal solutionthe golden solution" which will work out for every attraction.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response presents both sides of differential pricing in a clear, logical sequence and supports them with relevant consequences for attractions and visitors. Its main limitation is that the writer never states a sufficiently direct degree of agreement, while repetition and awkward wording sometimes reduce precision. The highest-priority improvement is to make a clear, qualified position and link each supporting paragraph explicitly to that position.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The essay discusses arguments for and against charging foreign visitors more and gives a balanced final view. However, the prompt asks to what extent the writer agrees or disagrees, and the final position is cautious rather than clearly quantified.
State a direct degree of agreement, for example that higher fees are acceptable only when used to improve tourist services and kept reasonable.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response has a logical structure with an introduction, supporting arguments, opposing arguments, and conclusion. Some repetition in the opening and a long example paragraph reduce efficiency.
Remove repeated sentences from the introduction and make each body paragraph end with a sentence that links the point back to fair pricing.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is generally adequate for tourism, attractions, income, services, and discrimination. Several collocations are awkward, including object it, listening translation, feeling of abusing, and less amount of tourist.
Use natural tourism and fairness collocations such as "object to it", "audio guides", "feeling exploited", "fewer tourists", and "entrance fees".
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The essay is mostly understandable and uses some complex sentences. Errors with articles, prepositions, countable nouns, and word forms occur regularly and keep the response below a stronger band.
Check prepositions after verbs and countable noun forms, especially with tourists, services, attractions, and fees.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Foreign visitors should pay more than local visitors for cultural and historical attractions. 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.