Many people believe that film is a less important art than other forms such as literature and painting. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Film is often looked down on as a less important art form in comparison with more elevated mediamediums like painting and literature. In my opinion, though the blatant commercialisation of film often undermines its claim to be art at all, it is clearly a more important art formit is a clearly more important art form for the 21st century.
Those who would minimise the importance of film can pointfilm, can point out its primary purpose is to make money. This has become increasingly true in the last several decades as studios have assumed greater power. It used to be common for auteurs like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Robert Altman to make modestly budgeted films that earned decent returns. The advent of blockbuster films generally and superhero movies in particular makes it much harder for studios catering to their shareholders to justify anything other than tentpole franchises. The artistic merits of these large-scale productionsthese big movies tend to be low as they are often made by committee and aim only to provide escapism and fan servicestrive only for escapism and fan service.
However, film has clearly overtaken other forms of art in the popular imagination. Hundreds of years ago, composers, playwrights, novelists, and painters were held in higher esteem and their works were the centre of popular culture. Music and film have now displaced them. Someone who would have become a great writer in the 19th century would19th century, would now opt to make films as they can reach the greatest number of people and the medium is newer and more open to creative possibilitiesmore open to possibility. A good example of this would be a young filmmaker like P.T. Anderson who creates thoughtful, exploratoryexplorative works that also have a degree of mass appeal.
In conclusion, film as an art form is ascendant today. It is, however, still important for audiences to engage with a wide range of genrestune in to a wide breadth of genres in order to encourage the film industry to remain vibrant and innovative.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response gives a clear, nuanced position and develops it through a persuasive contrast between commercial pressures and film's contemporary cultural reach. Its main limitation is that the conclusion introduces audience behaviour rather than fully consolidating the comparison with literature and painting, and a few unnecessary commas slightly weaken polish. The highest-priority improvement is to finish by explicitly synthesising why film's reach outweighs its commercial limitations.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The position is clear throughout and is supported by well-developed, relevant arguments on both commercialisation and cultural influence.
Make the conclusion explicitly weigh film against literature and painting instead of adding a new recommendation to audiences.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument progresses smoothly through a focused concession and rebuttal, with clear paragraph-level sequencing.
Strengthen the final link back to the thesis so the conclusion completes the argumentative progression more decisively.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is wide, precise, and highly flexible, including sophisticated language for artistic status and commercial production.
Maintain this precision while choosing the most exact evaluative term in phrases such as more important art form.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of complex structures is handled with strong control, and the few punctuation lapses do not affect clarity.
Remove unnecessary commas separating subjects from verbs and check punctuation around embedded clauses.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Many people believe that film is a less important art than other forms such as literature and painting. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.