Recent figures show an increase in violent crime among youngsters under the age of 18. Some psychologists claim that the basic reason for this is that children these days are not getting the social and emotional learning they need from parents and teachers. To what extend do you agree or disagree with this option?
Sample Response
The increase of crimes committed by young people is just one of the consequences of the way our society is evolving. In my opinion, the reason is precisely in the way children grow both at home and at school, where the lack of adults support often means to a child the need to learn by himself how to behave with people.
First of all, it is important to realize how the relationships between students and teachers have changed through the last decade, since the introduction of electronic devices in our everyday life. The massive use of such devices, like smartphones, is influencing not only the way a child behave with people, but also the way he thinks and approaches everyday situations. In this sense, a child using too much electronic devices could develop the idea that school is unuseful because he can learn whatever he needs from the internet, avoiding listening to the teacher.
Secondly, we should consider how the role of parents has changed after technology revolution. Before computers were created for leisure purposes, children used to spend more time with parents or relatives once at home after school lessons. Therefore, they used to acquire information mainly from other people they knew very well. Electronic devices have stolen time to adults and children, weakening the relationship they had among each others. The result is that many children prefer to learn new things by using the internet instead of asking to relatives and spending time with them, as it was for centuries in human history.
All these things considered, I strongly believe that the way people changed their approach to social relationships is badly affecting the growth of nowadays children. This lack of social and emotional learning will have really negative effects on tomorrow adults, with consequences difficult to predict.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Correct the collocation Original: of Suggested revision: in Why it matters: Use "an increase in" when describing a rise in the number of crimes.
- 2. Correct time preposition Original: through Suggested revision: over Why it matters: Use "over" for a change developing across a period up to the present.
- 3. Choose natural wording Original: massive Suggested revision: widespread Why it matters: "Widespread use" is the natural collocation for extensive adoption of devices.
- 4. Fix verb agreement Original: behave Suggested revision: behaves Why it matters: The singular subject "a child" requires the third-person singular verb form.
- 5. Use countable quantifier Original: much Suggested revision: many Why it matters: Use "many" with the plural countable noun "devices".
- 6. Use standard adjective Original: unuseful Suggested revision: useless Why it matters: "Useless" is the standard adjective for something perceived as having no value.
- 7. Clarify the relationship Original: avoiding listening to the teacher Suggested revision: instead of listening to the teacher Why it matters: The replacement clearly presents listening to the teacher as the alternative being avoided.
- 8. Correct the phrase Original: after technology revolution Suggested revision: since the technological revolution Why it matters: The revised phrase uses the appropriate adjective, article, and time preposition.
- 9. State the change precisely Original: were created for leisure purposes Suggested revision: became widely used for leisure purposes Why it matters: This wording describes the relevant change in computer use more precisely.
- 10. Use natural expression Original: after school lessons Suggested revision: after school Why it matters: "After school" is the natural concise expression for this time period.
- 11. Correct the collocation Original: stolen time to adults and children Suggested revision: taken time away from adults and children Why it matters: The expression is "take time away from" someone, not "steal time to" someone.
- 12. Fix pronoun and preposition Original: the relationship they had among each others Suggested revision: the relationships they had with each other Why it matters: Use "with each other" for a reciprocal relationship and avoid the incorrect plural "others".
Suggested Rewrites
- of in
- through over
- massive widespread
- behave behaves
- much many
- unuseful useless
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response maintains a clear position and follows a logical paragraph structure, with relevant discussion of how technology may weaken children’s contact with parents and teachers. Its main limitation is that it does not adequately explain how this reduced social and emotional learning causes the stated rise in violent crime, and frequent collocational and grammatical errors reduce precision. Prioritise a direct, well-supported causal link to youth violence while proofreading agreement, articles, and prepositions.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response gives a clear agreement position and relevant reasons about weakened adult guidance, but it leaves the connection to violent crime insufficiently developed.
Explain explicitly how reduced guidance produces violent behaviour and support that causal link with a specific, plausible example.
Coherence and Cohesion
The essay is organised into purposeful paragraphs with clear overall progression, although some reasoning within paragraphs moves indirectly from technology use to the central claim.
Make each body paragraph follow a direct cause-and-effect chain from technology use through reduced adult guidance to poor social learning and violence.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is adequate for the topic and includes some less common language, but frequent collocational errors and unnatural word forms limit precision.
Replace inaccurate combinations such as unuseful, stolen time to adults, and tomorrow adults with conventional academic collocations.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex sentences communicates the main ideas, but recurring errors with agreement, articles, possessives, plurals, and prepositions remain noticeable.
Proofread systematically for forms such as a child behaves, too many devices, adults’ support, and asking relatives before refining more complex structures.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Recent figures show an increase in violent crime among youngsters under the age of 18. Some psychologists claim that the basic reason for this is that children these days are not getting the social and emotional learning they need from parents and teachers. To what extend do you agree or disagree with this option?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.