In some countries, young people are encouraged to work or travel for a year between finishing high school and starting university studies. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for young people who decide to do this.
Sample Response
Young people who have just finished high schoolfinished high school studies could decide to continue studying at university or to work or travel abroad. This essay is about the advantages and disadvantages that young people could face when decidingface deciding not to continue studying immediately after high school graduationthe high school graduation.
One of the possible advantages of encouraging young people to take a gapsabbatical year before university studies is that students could discover what they really like to do in the future: in fact, while studying, most subjects are covered superficiallymost of the subjects are superficially treated and students often feel forced to study without understandingstudents often feel forced to study, not understanding that they are shapingdeciding their future and that studying is not a waste of timenot wasting time on books. So a one-year breakstop could help clarify their ideascould clear ideas and teenagers could make the best decision for their futuredecide the best for their future.
HoweverOn the contrary, encouraging young students to work or travel for a year before going to university could also bring disadvantagesbring also disadvantages. Although some time could help clarify their ideasWhereas some time could clarify ideas, too much timetoo much time time could discourage former students from resuming their studiesdiscourage former students to restart studying. For example,: for example young people who decide to work after high school usually do not return to educationdon't return to study because they feel that resuming their studies would be too difficultbecause they feel it could be too hard to do it. This could lead to a fallThis fact could take to a fall in the number of students going to university.
To sum up, there are many reasonslots of reasons in favour of encouraging young people to work or travel for one year after graduating from high schoolgraduating from the high school, but there are also some disadvantages that have to be taken into account.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response is clearly organised around one advantage and one disadvantage, and each main idea receives a relevant explanation. However, the discussion has limited breadth, the conclusion is generic, and several unnatural expressions reduce precision; the slight shortfall in length also leaves little room for fuller development. The main priority is to add more specific consequences or examples while using more natural verb-noun combinations.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Both advantages and disadvantages are addressed with relevant explanation, but each side relies on a single idea and the conclusion adds little synthesis.
Broaden the discussion with one further specific benefit or drawback and make the conclusion summarise the relative significance of both sides.
Coherence and Cohesion
The four-paragraph structure and overall progression are clear, though a few linking expressions are formulaic or awkwardly used.
Connect supporting sentences through their logical meaning and use contrast markers only where the relationship is genuinely contrastive.
Lexical Resource
There is an adequate range of topic vocabulary, including some less common choices, but recurrent collocation errors make several phrases sound unnatural.
Practise natural combinations such as clarify their goals, return to education, and lead to a decline, then check each key verb-noun pairing.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses a useful range of complex sentences, but errors with articles, word order, punctuation, and verb patterns recur.
Improve control of subordinate clauses and gerund structures, and split overly long sentences where independent ideas are joined only by punctuation.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
In some countries, young people are encouraged to work or travel for a year between finishing high school and starting university studies. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for young people who decide to do this.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.