It is better for children to grow up in the countryside than in a big city. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to develop your essay.
Sample Response
Bringing up the younger generationyoung generation in a big city is not as suitable for children as the countrysidenot as good as the countryside. I partially disagree with this statement. In my view, cities are the best placesplace to raise childrengrow up children and to live. However, cities have some drawbacks which will be discussed in this essay. Many people opt to live in large cities rather than the countryside because they prefer living in metropolitan areas to living in remote areasprefer to live in the metropolitan area than remote areas. One important benefitSuch a good benefit is employmentan employment. People living in citiesPeople, who are living in a city can easily get a job in various professionsdifferent types of professions. Another reason is the ready availability of public transporteasy availability of transportation services, extensive networkslarge complex network maps of buses and trains covering almost all surrounding suburbs of a city, which can save a lot of valuable time spent travellingspent by travelling with theirthe own vehicle, making public transport more convenient and economicalwhich is more convenient and economical when your children go to school. And you will know where they are. However, the cost of living in a city is usually much higher than in the countryside. Inhabitants of cities have to pay higher prices for housing, transport, and even food. Moreover, the big cities have some social problems such as high crime and poverty rates in comparison with the countryside. Furthermore, the air quality in cities is often poor due tooften poor, due to pollution from traffic, and the streets and public transport systems are usually overcrowded. As a result, city life can be unhealthy and stressful for childrenstressful to our children. After analysing the essay, we can conclude that those points are the important factors when considering living either in the urban or rural area. In addition to these factorsApart from those, entertainment facilities, well-developed infrastructure and keeping up with the latest trendsliving with latest trends are other reasons for living in cities.
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response offers a useful range of urban advantages and disadvantages, and its main ideas remain generally understandable. However, the position is contradictory at the start and unclear at the end, much of the discussion concerns adults or city life generally, and the single paragraph weakens progression. The priority is to choose a precise degree of agreement and organise child-focused reasons into separate, fully developed paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response discusses relevant urban benefits and drawbacks, but its position is inconsistent and several ideas are not specifically developed around children's upbringing.
State one unambiguous position, then support it with two child-focused comparisons covering education, safety, health, or development.
Coherence and Cohesion
The sequence of advantages followed by disadvantages is discernible, but the entire essay forms one paragraph and several long links obscure the argument's hierarchy.
Use an introduction, separate body paragraphs for the main reasons, and a conclusion that directly restates the position.
Lexical Resource
There is an adequate range of city-related vocabulary, but frequent awkward collocations and word choices reduce naturalness and precision.
Learn accurate combinations such as raise children, employment opportunities, travel by private vehicle, and stressful for children.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response attempts varied complex structures, but errors in articles, relative clauses, comparison forms, and sentence control occur frequently.
Build shorter complex sentences with one clear main clause, then check articles, prepositions, and relative-clause punctuation systematically.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
It is better for children to grow up in the countryside than in a big city. Do you agree or disagree? Use specific reasons and examples to develop your essay.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.