To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement: Some of the methods used in advertising are unethical and unacceptable in today’s society.
Sample Response
In this digital age, we are barraged with an endless numberamount of advertisements on a daily basis, ranging from adverts on our cell phones to personal soliciting. Nonetheless, many of the methods used to advertise can be considered unacceptable and immoral.
To begin, a common aim among many advertisersa common agenda of many advertisers is to first make their audience feel deprived and then to instil in their viewers the beliefinstil a belief in their viewers that only through buying the advertised product or service, they can attain satisfaction. Most people would agree that this strategy is at the very least unacceptable and, at worst,unacceptable and at worst sinister. Another unacceptable tactic used by advertisers is the deliberate misrepresentation of their products as scarcemisrepresentation of their products as being scarce and available only for a limited timeonly available for a limited amount of time, by doing this they exploit human psychologythe human psychology, which places a higher value on things that are apparently not abundant.
In addition, the fact that we cannotcan’t escape from advertising is, in my opinion,is in my opinion, an invasion of personal privacy. In this era of democracy, human beings should have the freedomthe free will to decide what information they wish to receive but through the internetthrough internet and telemarketing, advertisers have the choice to force their products upon usshove their products down our throats. To illustrate, when browsing the internet, advertisements can appear at any timeads can pop up anytime, one after another and after repeated exposureafter a certain number of times, these intrusive ads can become excruciatingly frustrating.
In brief, I agree with the notion that many of the tactics used for advertisingadverting in today’s world are both unacceptable and unethical because they are manipulative and violate a person’s privacy.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The essay maintains a clear position and develops two persuasive concerns: manipulative scarcity tactics and intrusive advertising that undermines privacy. Its strongest feature is the focused, relevant support, while the main limitation is sentence control, particularly comma splices and a few imprecise expressions. Prioritise splitting the long tactic and internet-advertising sentences into controlled units, then replace vague wording with precise terms such as unsolicited marketing and consumer psychology.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The position is clear throughout and the arguments about manufactured dissatisfaction, false scarcity and privacy are relevant and well developed.
Add one concrete real-world illustration of a misleading scarcity claim or targeted advertising practice to deepen the support.
Coherence and Cohesion
The introduction, two focused body paragraphs and conclusion create strong progression, with cohesive devices generally used effectively.
Improve local flow by separating the false-scarcity explanation and the intrusive-ad example into shorter, more clearly linked sentences.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is flexible and often precise, with strong choices such as "deliberate misrepresentation," "scarce" and "intrusive," despite several awkward expressions.
Replace "personal soliciting," "common agenda" and "the human psychology" with "unsolicited marketing," "common strategy" and "consumer psychology."
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex sentences is used successfully, but comma splices, article omissions and punctuation errors occur in prominent long sentences.
Separate independent clauses with full stops or semicolons and revise phrases such as "through the internet" and "in my opinion" without an unnecessary following comma.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement: Some of the methods used in advertising are unethical and unacceptable in today’s society.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.