Some people believe that children should be allowed to stay at home and play until they are six or seven years old. Others believe that it is important for young children to go to school as soon as possible. What do you think are the advantages of attending school from a young age?
Sample Response
There has always been a considerable debate over whetherdebate over the topic whether children should start school after age fourgo to school after four or they should stay at home until they are seven. While there are some meritmerits in both arguments, my personal view is that parents should not rush to sendshould not hassle about sending their kids to school. People who support schooling at a young agesupport the school at young age base their arguments on the rate of brain developmentimprovement rate of the brain during language acquisition. Research shows that the rate at which connections form between neuronsspeed of connections made between neurones is faster during the first five years. This fact can also be interpreted as children are quick learner between age 0 to 5. Therefore, relatively difficult subjectsrelatively hard lessons such as maths and physics can be learned easily by childrencan easily be acquired by kids when their learning abilities are at their peakwhen their learning capabilities at zenith. The second argument is thatThe second argument would be that kids tend to be more social when they are able to interact with their peersmingled with their peers at a younger age. More they stay beside their families, more they are accustomed to take rather than to give. However, we learn to be collaborative at school. Thus, sooner kids are sent to school, less the selfishness become entrenched. People who are opposed to this view, including me, feel that we live most of our lives as adults with many responsibilitiesa plethora of responsibilities and childhoodthe childhood is already a short period to enjoy fullya short span to enjoy sufficiently. Why shorten it even more? The age of sevenThe age seven is too young to be burdened with lessonsyoung enough to be inundated with lessons and to be given responsibilities in the form of homework. In conclusion, although I believe that both sides have strong arguments, my personal view is that children should not be sent to school until seven because childhood is already a short period of life and should be spent without responsibilities and plenty of playabundant fun.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response identifies and explains two relevant advantages of early schooling—faster learning and social development—with logical supporting reasoning. Its main limitation is that substantial space is devoted to opposing early attendance even though the question asks specifically for advantages, while the single-paragraph format weakens organisation; the priority is to keep every body section focused on a distinct advantage and develop it precisely.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Two relevant advantages are developed, but the response loses focus by arguing against early schooling and concluding with that opposing view.
Answer the stated question directly by developing only the advantages and avoiding an unnecessary counter-position.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas follow a clear sequence and linking is generally effective, although the absence of paragraph breaks and some formulaic transitions reduce clarity.
Separate the introduction, each main advantage, and the conclusion into distinct paragraphs with focused topic sentences.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a fairly wide range of vocabulary, including language for learning and social development, despite several awkward collocations.
Choose more natural combinations and avoid forced expressions such as describing learning capacity as being at zenith.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex structures is used, but recurring agreement, article, and comparative-construction errors reduce accuracy.
Review patterns such as the more...the more and ensure subjects agree with their verbs in every clause.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people believe that children should be allowed to stay at home and play until they are six or seven years old. Others believe that it is important for young children to go to school as soon as possible. What do you think are the advantages of attending school from a young age?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.