More and more companies are allowing employees to work at home. Do you think this is a positive or negative development?
Sample Response
With the advent of the computer and the widespread use of the internet, people have changed the way they perform everyday tasks. An increasing number of corporations believe in letting employees work full-time or part-time from home and thousands of people are doing freelancing to earn their livings. The following essay will discuss the pros and cons sides over this change.
A recent poll shows that people lose self-control and discipline easily while they perform professional work via telecommuting. Because people are given more freedoms to deal with the tasks and without a strict deadline, they often mixed their professional attitude with their personal life. They often lie to their employers and thus perform poorly.
On the contrary, imagine that there is no one looking over your shoulder and enforcing strict hours and because of that you may feel tempted to work endlessly. That can strongly influence your working effectively. Therefore, there are other issues emerged that employees can't get along well with others since everyone just concentrating on their missions and it's easy to be overlooked.
Nevertheless, other people propose that the argument above is merely a one-sided story, by working at home you save on many hidden costs associated with going to work. These include costs of commuting, car purchasing, fuel costs, and parking spots as well. Moreover, flexible time and comfortable workplace provides employees more inspirations and creatively, since thinking out of the box is essential for those who work in advertising companies, IT firms and in other fields of works that require creativity. Without the stresses and strict monitoring from the office, working independently in their own preferred environment at their own pace, professionals are often a lot happier and a lot more productive.
In conclusion, it depends on companies current situations to consider whether to allow employees work from home or not. For my view, as a designer, I prefer to work from home since it gives me more inspirations and freedom.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use direct verb Original: are doing freelancing Suggested revision: are freelancing Why it matters: “Freelance” functions directly as a verb and does not take “do”.
- 2. Use fixed expression Original: earn their livings Suggested revision: earn a living Why it matters: The standard expression is the singular phrase “earn a living”.
- 3. Use parallel terms Original: the pros and cons sides over this change Suggested revision: the advantages and disadvantages of this change Why it matters: “Pros and cons” already means two sides, and the correct preposition is “of”.
- 4. Fix clause structure Original: influence your working effectively Suggested revision: affect how effectively you work Why it matters: “Affect how effectively you work” expresses the impact with a grammatical embedded clause.
- 5. Fix existential clause Original: there are other issues emerged Suggested revision: other issues emerge Why it matters: The sentence cannot combine existential “there are” with the finite verb “emerged”.
- 6. Add auxiliary verb Original: everyone just concentrating Suggested revision: everyone is just concentrating Why it matters: The present participle “concentrating” requires the auxiliary “is”.
- 7. Clarify overlooked subject Original: it's easy to be overlooked Suggested revision: employees can easily be overlooked Why it matters: The revision names who may be overlooked instead of using an empty “it” construction.
- 8. Use natural noun phrase Original: car purchasing Suggested revision: purchasing a car Why it matters: The gerund phrase naturally expresses the cost of buying a car.
- 9. Name financial cost Original: parking spots Suggested revision: parking fees Why it matters: Fees are costs, whereas parking spots are physical spaces.
- 10. Remove redundant addition Original: as well Suggested revision: Delete Why it matters: “Include” already signals that every listed item is an addition, so “as well” is unnecessary.
- 11. Use parallel nouns Original: more inspirations and creatively Suggested revision: more inspiration and creativity Why it matters: The coordination requires two nouns, and “inspiration” is uncountable here.
- 12. Use standard idiom Original: thinking out of the box Suggested revision: thinking outside the box Why it matters: The standard expression is “think outside the box”.
Suggested Rewrites
- are doing freelancing are freelancing
- earn their livings earn a living
- the pros and cons sides over this change the advantages and disadvantages of this change
- influence your working effectively affect how effectively you work
- there are other issues emerged other issues emerge
- everyone just concentrating everyone is just concentrating
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response’s strongest feature is its broad treatment of remote work, covering discipline, overwork, isolation, commuting costs, flexibility, creativity, and productivity. Its main limitation is that the final position is based mainly on the writer’s personal preference as a designer, without clearly weighing which effects make the development positive overall. The highest priority is to establish a consistent evaluative position and organise the overlapping disadvantages into a clearer argument.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Detailed feedback by IELTS writing criterion after the annotated essay.
Task Response
Relevant advantages and disadvantages are developed and a preference is stated, but the overall judgement remains conditional and insufficiently weighed.
Explain why the benefits outweigh the risks for employees or companies generally, while identifying the conditions needed for remote work to succeed.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response follows a broad disadvantages–advantages sequence, but one contrast marker introduces another drawback and the middle paragraphs overlap in focus.
Combine discipline, overwork, and isolation in one coherent disadvantages paragraph, then contrast it with a separate benefits paragraph.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary covers a useful range of remote-work issues, but frequent word-form and collocational errors weaken naturalness and accuracy.
Use standard expressions such as ‘earn a living’, ‘work-life boundaries’, ‘work effectiveness’, ‘inspiration and creativity’, and ‘fields of work’.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentences are attempted, but recurring errors in tense, agreement, articles, clause structure, and non-finite forms reduce control.
Rewrite long sentences as complete clauses and check forms such as ‘employees mix’, ‘issues emerge’, ‘everyone concentrates’, and ‘companies’ circumstances’.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
More and more companies are allowing employees to work at home. Do you think this is a positive or negative development?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.