The only way to cut the crime rate is building more prisons and make prison sentences longer. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?
Sample Response
As we see nowadays the crime rate has increased comparatively and many people think that building more prisons and putting people inside for a long time will help to reduce the crime rate but actually this is not the solution in my opinion.
The first thing we need to do is to control the crime rate in the society by raising awareness in people and through positive media. The media has a very important role in raising awareness in common population through television and the Internet. The young generation is deeply influenced by the violence based movies and such movies should not me made instead positive messages should be given to the innocent minds so that tomorrow they become the useful citizens.
Another important issue is the increased use of unlicensed weapons openly in society as it is seen commonly now that on small issues people lose their tempers and don't hesitate in using guns. At the same time, security should be increased at society level like in small towns and other neglected places and security automobiles number should also be increased.
The idea of increasing the prison number and holding the criminals long time inside is not a very sensible idea because it is observed that people start making organised gangs inside the jails and sometimes become big criminals than they were ever before. Instead of wasting this money on extending the prison system Government should invest this money on beneficial plans for a nation like constructing modern hospitals, improving the pre-existing health sector and giving better education standards.
To sum up, raising awareness can make a remarkable difference in people's attitude and can decline the crime rates. this is a far better approach than increasing the number of prisons and prolonging the punishment period.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Remove unnecessary article Original: in the society Suggested revision: in society Why it matters: Society takes no article when used in this general sense.
- 2. Use public awareness Original: raising awareness in people Suggested revision: raising public awareness Why it matters: Raise public awareness is the standard collocation.
- 3. Use plays-a-role collocation Original: has Suggested revision: plays Why it matters: Play a role is the natural verb phrase for describing influence.
- 4. Use general population Original: in common population Suggested revision: among the general population Why it matters: Among the general population is the standard phrase for reaching ordinary members of society.
- 5. Add article and precision Original: at society level Suggested revision: at the community level Why it matters: The singular level requires an article, and community matches the local places that follow.
- 6. Use formal example phrase Original: like Suggested revision: particularly Why it matters: Particularly identifies the places needing attention more formally and precisely.
- 7. Fix noun phrase order Original: security automobiles number Suggested revision: the number of security vehicles Why it matters: The number of is required before the plural noun phrase, and vehicles is the natural term.
- 8. Use number-of structure Original: increasing the prison number Suggested revision: increasing the number of prisons Why it matters: The number of prisons is the grammatical phrase for the quantity of facilities.
- 9. Fix time phrase order Original: holding the criminals long time inside Suggested revision: holding criminals inside for a long time Why it matters: The duration phrase requires for and should follow the location complement.
- 10. Use form gangs Original: start making organised gangs Suggested revision: form organised gangs Why it matters: Form a gang is the natural collocation.
- 11. Use in prison Original: inside the jails Suggested revision: in prison Why it matters: In prison is the concise general expression for incarceration.
- 12. Fix comparative form Original: become big criminals than Suggested revision: become more serious criminals than Why it matters: The comparison requires the form more serious than.
Suggested Rewrites
- in the society in society
- raising awareness in people raising public awareness
- has plays
- in common population among the general population
- at society level at the community level
- like particularly
Why this response received Band 6.0
The essay clearly rejects prison expansion as the sole solution and proposes public awareness, weapons control, stronger security, and alternative social investment. Its strongest feature is the consistent position and paragraph-level organisation, but several proposed measures have weak or unexplained links to crime reduction, while frequent grammatical and collocational errors reduce precision. The highest priority is to choose two credible alternatives and develop their causal effects through specific, controlled examples.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response maintains a clear disagreement and offers several alternatives, but their relevance and effectiveness are often asserted rather than convincingly explained.
Develop two measures, such as weapons enforcement and education, showing step by step how each would prevent particular forms of crime.
Coherence and Cohesion
The five-paragraph structure gives the argument clear overall progression, although long sentences and loosely connected details sometimes weaken flow within paragraphs.
Keep each body paragraph centred on one prevention strategy and use shorter cause-and-effect sequences to link evidence to the main claim.
Lexical Resource
There is adequate vocabulary for crime, media, security, and public spending, but frequent inaccurate collocations and word forms reduce naturalness.
Use precise phrases such as 'raise public awareness', 'violent films', 'increase police patrols', and 'reduce the crime rate'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response attempts varied sentence structures, but frequent errors in sentence boundaries, articles, verb forms, agreement, and comparison weaken control.
Split run-on sentences into complete units and check comparative forms, passive verbs, and capitalisation during proofreading.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
The only way to cut the crime rate is building more prisons and make prison sentences longer. 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.