Some companies say that if an employee wants to smoke they must leave the building and smoke outside. This takes time away from work, and the employers insist that this time should be counted as break time. This may not be fair to the smokers who may have to wait a long time to get out of the building. How could this problem be resolved?
Sample Response
Smoking is such a bad habit that it affects the workworking efficiency and health of the workers and smoking on office premisessmoking in the office premises brings potential harmharms to colleagues'colleges’ health and emotional well-being. Positive solutions should be taken to tackle this worrying trend.
I believe that employees should not be allowed to smoke inside the building as all of their colleaguescolleges will be the passive smokers in this circumstance. It should not be allowed in the first place as the health of non-smoking employeesthe non-smoking workers and employees’ health will be adversely affectedbadly influenced by such a working environmentsuch working environment. In particular, this behaviour will be harmful to female workers who are pregnant and their unborn babies could be seriously harmedtheir unborn babies would be greatly harmed. Working environment should be smoking-free area and those who want to have a smoke break should be in the right place.
Employees are paid accordingrefer to their actual working hours in most industrialised areas. If a worker who smokes and takes frequent breaks during working hours should be either salary-deducted or should work extra hours to compensate the time s/he spends for smoking. It is fair enough because there is a saying that how much you will be paid depends on how much you work.
I can understand that many argue that it would be unfair because smokers have to spend a long time walking to smoking areas. It could be solved by constructingconstruing a smoking room for that group of workersthose certain group of workers on every floor so that it reduces their travel timetime in travelling if necessary. AdditionallyHowever, on the other hand, employees should be encouraged to quit smoking for health reasons by providing a smoking-cessation programmeprofessional course for them. If they could stop this unhealthy habit, the company would no longer need to worrythe company is no longer necessary to worry about the fairness of travel time for smoking breaksfairness of walking time of smoking break and building an extra room for them to smoke.
In conclusion, smokers should pay for themselves if they hope to smoke in the working and employers have the responsibility to provide staff welfare for them to help to form a good working or living habit.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response offers several practical resolutions, especially nearby smoking rooms, compensated time, and support for quitting, and it organizes them in a broadly logical sequence. However, substantial space is spent restating the harms of indoor smoking, while frequent grammatical and word-choice errors weaken precision. The highest-priority improvement is to focus each body paragraph directly on one workable solution and explain its fairness clearly in accurate sentences.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The essay proposes multiple relevant solutions and explains some benefits, but its initial discussion of smoking harms is only indirectly related to resolving the fairness problem.
Devote each body paragraph to a specific resolution and evaluate how it balances workplace productivity with fair treatment of smokers.
Coherence and Cohesion
Paragraphing and overall progression are clear, although some connections are repetitive or awkward and the focus occasionally shifts away from the central problem.
Use a direct problem-solution sequence and remove redundant transitions such as However, on the other hand.
Lexical Resource
The response has enough vocabulary to discuss workplace policy and health, but frequent inaccurate choices and collocations reduce precision.
Correct recurring choices such as colleagues rather than colleges and construct rather than construing, and learn natural workplace collocations.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Both simple and complex forms are attempted, but frequent errors in articles, agreement, conditionals, and clause construction sometimes strain readability.
Rewrite conditional and passive sentences with complete clause structures, then proofread consistently for articles and subject-verb agreement.
Write this task while it is fresh
Try the same task now. It helps you remember the feedback and write better next time.
IELTS Writing Task 2
Some companies say that if an employee wants to smoke they must leave the building and smoke outside. This takes time away from work, and the employers insist that this time should be counted as break time. This may not be fair to the smokers who may have to wait a long time to get out of the building. How could this problem be resolved?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.