Some people think that cars should be banned from large cities. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Sample Response
There is a dramatic increase in private transportation around the globe over the last few years. Increased wages, economic prosperity and depletion in vehicle prices made easy for people to have their own personal car. However, this has led to various detrimental issues including congestion, pollution and safety. For those reasons, I believe that limiting the number of cars in bigger cities could mitigate those problems. Completely banning cars in big cities is not a plausible solution as it is unrealistic, however, restricting the number of such private cars would be an effective solution indeed. Nowadays, traffic contributed a lot in widespread of pollution. Car smoke, traffic jams and loud horns of vehicles are few reasons that significantly affect the environment and people in many ways. People are more vulnerable to various diseases and many have serious health issues due to pollution. In order to tackle this issues, restriction on private car ownership should be imposed. Not allowing people to drive their cars in big cities is not possible while it is much reasonable to restrict the number of cars a family can own, the number of minimum passenger on each car while driving would be the two pragmatic solutions. Additionally, in order to combat with traffic congestion, new road infrastructure have been introduced by various nations that include deforestation to acquire more space to build new roads, modern bridges and pedestrian pathways. Those development works could destroy the natural habitat of various species that could lead towards the extinction of them from various countries. Nevertheless, prudent decisions should be taken to enhance the number of roads without doing any harm to the natural environment. On the other hand, personal vehicles are more convenient and safer than other means of transportation. This is not surprising that people often feel more comfortable and relaxed while driving their cars. Completely banning the use of private cars in cities would deprive people to travel freely and according to their own preference. To sum up, controlling and restricting vehicles in large cities would definitely play a pivotal role in improving people’s health and would also help in controlling factors that are the cause of deteriorating situation of the environment. But banning the private cars completely in big cities is not a pragmatic solution in my opinion.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use present perfect Original: There is a dramatic increase in private transportation around the globe over the last few years Suggested revision: There has been a dramatic increase in private transportation around the globe over the last few years Why it matters: Present perfect is required for a change extending from recent years to the present.
- 2. Fix price collocation Original: depletion Suggested revision: decreases Why it matters: Prices decrease; 'depletion' normally describes resources being used up.
- 3. Add object pronoun Original: made easy for people Suggested revision: have made it easy for people Why it matters: The construction requires dummy object 'it', and present perfect fits the continuing effect.
- 4. Remove redundancy Original: own personal car Suggested revision: own car Why it matters: 'Own' already conveys that the car is personal.
- 5. Match task wording Original: bigger Suggested revision: large Why it matters: 'Large cities' is the more formal and consistent term for this context.
- 6. Fix comma splice Original: unrealistic, however, restricting Suggested revision: unrealistic; however, restricting Why it matters: A semicolon is needed before the conjunctive adverb joining independent clauses.
- 7. Fix tense and phrase Original: traffic contributed a lot in widespread of pollution Suggested revision: traffic contributes greatly to widespread pollution Why it matters: A general current claim needs simple present and the construction 'contributes to'.
- 8. Use pollution term Original: Car smoke Suggested revision: Vehicle emissions Why it matters: 'Vehicle emissions' is the precise term for pollution produced by cars.
- 9. Use concise noun phrase Original: loud horns of vehicles Suggested revision: loud vehicle horns Why it matters: The noun modifier creates a more natural and concise phrase.
- 10. Add article Original: are few reasons Suggested revision: are a few factors Why it matters: The count phrase requires 'a', and 'factors' is more accurate for causes of harm.
- 11. Fix demonstrative agreement Original: this Suggested revision: these Why it matters: The plural noun 'issues' requires plural 'these'.
- 12. Use plural restrictions Original: restriction Suggested revision: restrictions Why it matters: The general policy proposal calls for plural 'restrictions'.
Suggested Rewrites
- There is a dramatic increase in private transportation around the globe over the last few years There has been a dramatic increase in private transportation around the globe over the last few years
- depletion decreases
- made easy for people have made it easy for people
- own personal car own car
- bigger large
- unrealistic, however, restricting unrealistic; however, restricting
Why this response received Band 6.5
The essay offers a clear, nuanced position: urban car use should be restricted, while a total ban would be impractical. Its reasoning covers pollution, health, infrastructure, and personal mobility with relevant development, but the single-block presentation obscures the strong conceptual structure and recurring grammatical and collocational errors reduce control. The highest priority is to divide the argument into focused paragraphs and edit complex sentences for accurate forms and relationships.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response directly answers the extent question with a consistent qualified position and develops relevant reasons on both restriction and complete prohibition.
Strengthen the qualification by explicitly weighing why targeted restrictions would outperform a total ban in practical terms.
Coherence and Cohesion
There is clear overall progression from problems to restrictions and counterarguments, but presenting the entire essay as one paragraph substantially weakens readability.
Create separate paragraphs for the position, environmental case, practical counterargument, and conclusion, each with one controlling idea.
Lexical Resource
The essay demonstrates a good range of topic-specific and less common vocabulary, though several collocations and word forms are used inaccurately.
Review natural patterns such as a decline in prices, contribute to pollution, tackle these issues, and deprive people of freedom.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A variety of complex structures is used and meaning remains clear, but errors in agreement, articles, prepositions, and sentence boundaries recur.
Shorten overloaded sentences and check agreement and prepositions within each clause before combining ideas.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people think that cars should be banned from large cities. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.