Most major cities around the world continue to grow at a phenomenal rate due to the massive increase in population. This has led to a general decline in the quality of life in city areas as the environment becomes more crowded and polluted. Give some reasons why this growth has occurred and suggest some practical solutions to this problem.
Sample Response
Rapid growth of megacitiesRapid developments in megacities and mass migrationmass migration of population to these metropolitan areasto these metropolitans in the hope of a better life, career, and futurewith the hope of better life, career and future have created a complex problemhave ushered in a perplexing conundrum that leads to declining living standards, overcrowding, and pollutiona worsening life standard, crowd and pollution in such big cities. City-centric development, better earning prospectsbetter-earning prospects and amenities in large cities have primarily contributed to this situationstimulated the development of this situation. The government needs to decentralise and focus on the development of suburban and rural areas to reverse this trendreverse the scenario.
Most megacities develop faster than any other part of the country and attract millions of people who migrate from other areas. This situation stems from the fact that the authorities enable city-centric growththe authority enables city-centric growth which makes big cities hubsthe big cities the hub for business, trade, manufacturing, education, research, employment and so on. This city-centric development forces people to move to big cities and adds further pressure toto add more woes to the already deteriorating situation there. A large factory, for example, in a city can hire thousands of people, and most of these employees move there for better career prospectsgo there for a better career. Moreover, most universities, colleges, hospitals, offices and other amenities are located in the heart of large cities, and people move there to access those facilities. A recent statistic points out that more than 80,000 studentsmore than 80 thousand students move to our capital city each year to enrol in different college and university coursesget enrolled in different college and university courses.
To solve the ever-increasing population burden and pollution in metropolitan areas, the government has to relocate many officesmove out many offices, colleges, factories and so on to remote areas. Without relocating those, the expectation of reducing pollution and overcrowdingcrowd in big cities is far-fetched and impractical. For instance, at least 2.5 million factory workers live in our capital city who can not afford proper accommodation, sanitary bathrooms and clean drinking water. Diseases can spread faster there than anywhere else and could put the whole city at riskcould risk the whole city in the process. To move those people to suburban or rural areas, the government has to decentralise. Moreover, the development focus should not be exclusivelyonly city-centric. It should rather be properly distributed. This will ensure that people have jobsmake sure people have jobs in rural areas and are not forced to move to a large city.
In conclusion, the phenomenal growth of cities poses different problems and increases pollution, and traffic congestion, and decreases living standards. Decentralisation and rural area-centric development can reverse the situation to a great extent.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response addresses both causes and solutions directly, using a strong central argument about city-centred development and supporting it with relevant examples in a clearly organised structure. Its main limitation is that some ambitious wording is unnatural or imprecise, and the proposed solution could be explained more practically. The highest priority is to use more natural collocations while detailing how decentralisation would be implemented and sustained.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Both parts of the task are fully addressed through a well-developed explanation of urban concentration and a relevant decentralisation solution.
Explain practical implementation measures, such as incentives and infrastructure investment, to make the proposed decentralisation solution more concrete.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response is logically organised into focused paragraphs, and its ideas progress clearly from causes to solutions and conclusion.
Tighten a few internal transitions so supporting examples connect more explicitly to the precise cause or solution being discussed.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a wide range of topic-specific and less common vocabulary, but several collocations are awkward or overly elaborate.
Choose more natural expressions such as metropolitan areas, declining living standards, and reduce overcrowding instead of forcing ambitious wording.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A broad range of complex structures is used with generally good control, though article, clause, punctuation, and noun-form errors occur occasionally.
Proofread complex sentences for cleaner relative clauses, parallel lists, and consistent singular and plural noun forms.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Most major cities around the world continue to grow at a phenomenal rate due to the massive increase in population. This has led to a general decline in the quality of life in city areas as the environment becomes more crowded and polluted. Give some reasons why this growth has occurred and suggest some practical solutions to this problem.
Your response
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