Government investment in the arts, such as music and theatre, is a waste of money. The government must invest this money in public services instead. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Sample Response
Art, music and theatreThe art, music and theatre constitute an integral part of the culture of any country. The government often found supporting these by arranging a requisite amount of funds but for some spending on these activities should ideally be utilised for the welfare of the country’s people as it otherwise does not serve any good purpose. I think there is nothing wrong with supporting a country's artswrong in supporting arts of a country and the government is the ideal bodyand government is the ideal body who should do this. With globalisation, the cultureWith globalisation, often the culture of developing countries changes as it adoptstransforms to adopt the traits of developed countries. For example, traditionalFor example traditional street plays in India are things of the pastthings of past and people are more inclined towards watching films, a practice associated with Western countriestoward watching movies, a culture from the western countries. This poses a threat to the existence of a country's distinctive regional culturean intrinsic regional culture of a country that defineswhich actually defines the spirit and uniqueness of the country. So it is the responsibility of the government to support traditional art, music and theatre which tendtends to carry the cultural heritage of a country. Every year, the government spends substantial sumsEvery year a lot is spent by the government to promote regional art, music and theatre and this is something that some people suggest is a waste of moneywhich people suggest is a waste of money. Prima facie it is correct, but on the other hand, it helps promote these features of a country which help the government to attract more and more tourists from other country and it also acts as the livelihood of the people who are solely dependent on these skills. For instance, the nation's foreign exchange earningsnation foreign exchange has risen by 20%has risen 20%, oversince the last five years, because of increased government promotionthanks to the increasing promotion by the government. To summarise, supporting the arts may involveTo summarise, it may involve substantial costsa huge cost for a nation to support art, music and theatre but it should be seen as an investment in preservinginvestment for supporting the unique heritage of the country.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response’s strongest feature is its clear, consistent defence of public arts funding through cultural preservation and economic benefits. The main limitation is that the competing claim about investing in public services is only briefly acknowledged, and some supporting claims remain general or awkwardly expressed. The highest-priority improvement is to engage more directly with that spending trade-off and support the rebuttal with a precise, credible example.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear position is maintained and supported with relevant arguments about heritage, tourism, and livelihoods, although the public-services alternative receives limited consideration.
Explain explicitly why arts funding remains justified when governments also face essential public-service demands.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument follows a generally clear sequence, but limited paragraphing and some overloaded sentences weaken the flow between stages.
Separate the cultural and economic arguments into distinct paragraphs with clearer topic sentences.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a good range of topic-specific and less common vocabulary, though several collocations are awkward or imprecise.
Choose more natural formulations for government support, cultural change, livelihoods, and foreign-exchange earnings.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Varied complex structures communicate the argument clearly overall, but errors in articles, agreement, punctuation, and clause construction recur.
Proofread complex sentences for complete clause structure and accurate noun phrases before finalising the response.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Government investment in the arts, such as music and theatre, is a waste of money. The government must invest this money in public services instead. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.