In some countries fast food restaurants and supermarkets give money to schools to promote their products. Do you think this is a positive or negative development?
Sample Response
In today’s highly competitive worldIn the highly competitive era of today, marketers such as restaurants and supermarkets have realized the promotional opportunities offered by schoolsmarketing opportunity offered by schools and so are giving money to schools. Even though the administrators of schools are using that money to financeusing that money to raise funds for school activities, this is definitely harmful to schoolchildrendisadvantageous for school children.
To begin with, advertisements for fast foodadverts of fast foods and their availability within school premises could encourage children to develop a taste for such foodwould help to develop children’s taste for such foods. This can increase health problems such as obesityproblems like obesity, which in turn is a cause of many other health issuesthe root cause of many other health issues among children. At presentAs it is, children today have sedentary lifestyles, which makes providing healthier food options imperativemakes it imperative that healthier food options should be made available to them. The welfare of students should be the top priority of schools and they should not take the baitfall in the bait of these companies for financial gainmonetary benefits.
Secondly, such commercial intrusions within the academic environment can promote consumerism. For instance, if schools advertise productspromote advertisements of any products like toys or computer games from supermarkets through educational materials, billboards or school television, children would assume that these products have the approvalwould think that they have the approval of teachers and school authorities. Consequently, these vulnerable children pester their parents to buy those products, which can upset the family budget. This is a clear examplea very vivid example of how commercialization of schools can promote materialism in children. Supporters of such practices claim that the money such companies give for promoting their products on campus helpsinside the campus, helps financially-strapped schools to buy library books or improve sports facilities. They claim that children benefit from the additional resources and facilities that schools can afford due to such funding. However, this argument overlooksWhat they fail to see is that commercial intrusions are already present in children’s lives these days and such intrusion should not be increasedthere is no scope for more.
To sum up, it is definitely a negative development to use schools to advertise their products as this may lead to unhealthy eating and a materialistic attitude in children Plan followed Intro: It is a negative development
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response presents a clear negative position and develops two relevant consequences, with the discussion of consumerism especially well supported by explanation and an example. Its main limitation is that the concession about school funding is dismissed briefly, while several awkward collocations and the stray planning text at the end reduce polish. Prioritise a more reasoned rebuttal and careful final editing for natural phrasing and a clean conclusion.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear negative position is sustained through two relevant, generally well-developed arguments, although the funding benefit receives only a cursory rebuttal.
Explain more precisely why the educational benefits of sponsorship do not outweigh the health and consumerism risks.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically through distinct arguments, and cohesive devices generally guide the reader clearly despite a dense third paragraph and stray closing text.
Separate the concession and rebuttal more cleanly, then remove planning notes during final proofreading.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a good range of topic-specific vocabulary, but phrases such as 'fall in the bait' and 'promote advertisements' are not idiomatic.
Prioritise accurate collocations, for example 'fall for the companies’ tactics' and 'advertise products.'
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A varied range of complex sentences is used with generally strong control, though several punctuation and construction errors remain.
Check sentence boundaries, unnecessary commas, and article or preposition choices in longer sentences.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
In some countries fast food restaurants and supermarkets give money to schools to promote their products. Do you think this is a positive or negative development?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.