Some say that young and energetic employees are the most valuable for the company, others argue that older employees have more experience and knowledge.
Sample Response
Which benefits your organisation more, having more experienced staffs or a group of young and fresh employees? There is no common agreement to answer this question because different people think differently about this topic. Some people believe that elderly staff's experience outweighs young employee's eagerness and energy and the rest have opposite point of view. I personally believe a suitable combination of young and experienced employees would work best for every single company.
Older employees are valuable assets for financial organisations as they have many years of experience behind them. Consequently, they own a great knowledge about the company and nature of the work. As a result, they can offer good solutions in tight situations as in many cases they have had the similar experience before. For instance, they can foresee the bottlenecks and potential problems better than young staffs. However, most of them usually become outdated gradually as they gradually become less willing to update their knowledge.
In contrast with the older staffs, younger employees usually are very energetic and have an updated knowledge about their field of work. To say more, they are usually more creative in solving the problems, eager to learn more and have a great effort in the work. Although these are all very beneficial for every company, their lack of experience may suffer them as well.
To conclude, according to my experience as a software developer, a good mixture of young and experienced employees will have the best effects in the companies. The experience of elderly in combination with youth energy and passion make the teams more efficient and the companies more productive.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Uncountable staff Original: staffs Suggested revision: staff Why it matters: Staff is normally uncountable when referring collectively to employees.
- 2. Natural agreement phrase Original: no common agreement to answer Suggested revision: no general agreement on how to answer Why it matters: The revised phrase uses the natural preposition and clearly links agreement to the question.
- 3. Correct possessive form Original: elderly staff's experience Suggested revision: older employees' experience Why it matters: The plural possessive matches the intended reference to multiple older employees.
- 4. Match plural reference Original: young employee's eagerness Suggested revision: younger employees' eagerness Why it matters: A plural possessive is needed for the general comparison between employee groups.
- 5. Add article and subject Original: the rest have opposite point of view Suggested revision: others hold the opposite point of view Why it matters: This revision supplies the article and uses a clear subject for the opposing group.
- 6. Use natural collocation Original: own a great knowledge Suggested revision: have extensive knowledge Why it matters: English uses have knowledge, while extensive is a more precise modifier here.
- 7. Clarify causal link Original: as Suggested revision: because Why it matters: Because makes the reason for their ability to offer solutions explicit.
- 8. Correct article choice Original: the Suggested revision: a Why it matters: A non-specific previous experience requires the indefinite article.
- 9. Uncountable staff Original: young staffs Suggested revision: younger staff Why it matters: Staff is used collectively without a plural ending, and younger sustains the comparison.
- 10. Natural contrast phrase Original: In contrast with the older staffs Suggested revision: In contrast to older staff Why it matters: In contrast to is the conventional connector, and staff is uncountable here.
- 11. Place adverb naturally Original: usually are very energetic Suggested revision: are usually very energetic Why it matters: The frequency adverb normally follows the verb be.
- 12. Natural knowledge phrase Original: an updated knowledge Suggested revision: up-to-date knowledge Why it matters: Knowledge is uncountable, and up-to-date is the natural modifier in this context.
Suggested Rewrites
- staffs staff
- no common agreement to answer no general agreement on how to answer
- elderly staff's experience older employees' experience
- young employee's eagerness younger employees' eagerness
- the rest have opposite point of view others hold the opposite point of view
- own a great knowledge have extensive knowledge
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response presents a clear, balanced position and organizes the comparison between younger and older employees logically, with relevant explanations on both sides. Its main limitation is the recurring use of inaccurate word forms and unnatural collocations, which reduces precision despite generally clear meaning. The highest-priority improvement is to develop each claim with more specific support while proofreading carefully for countability, articles, and idiomatic word choice.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response addresses both perspectives, maintains a clear preference for a mixed workforce, and supports its main ideas with relevant explanation.
Develop the advantages and limitations with more specific examples and explain more fully why a mixed team produces better outcomes.
Coherence and Cohesion
The four-paragraph structure and contrast between age groups create clear overall progression, although some linking is repetitive or slightly mechanical.
Use fewer routine connectors such as consequential phrases and strengthen the logical links between each claim and its supporting detail.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is sufficiently varied for the topic, but frequent collocational and word-form problems such as references to staffs and suffering employees limit precision.
Prioritize accurate, idiomatic combinations and learn the countability and typical usage of key workplace nouns and verbs.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex structures conveys the argument clearly, but recurring article, agreement, possessive, and plural errors reduce control.
Proofread systematically for articles, subject-verb agreement, possessives, and uncountable nouns before refining more complex sentence patterns.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some say that young and energetic employees are the most valuable for the company, others argue that older employees have more experience and knowledge.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.