Some governments say how many children a family can have in their country should be strictly controlled. They may control the number of children someone has through taxes. It is sometimes necessary and right for a government to control the population in this way. Do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Since overpopulation is often an unbearable burden onto the national economy and development of a country, it is certainly very understandable that some governments should start looking at ways of limiting their population growth to a sustainable levellimiting their populations to a sustainable figure. So I agree that some governments should take a one or two-children policy to curb population growthcurb the population growth problem, but that should be done in a way thatin a way so that people do not feel that their freedom has been taken away.
In the past, populations were partly regulated by frequent war and widespread disease, but in recent years, the effects of those factors have been diminished. Countries may faceCountries can be faced with a population that is growing much faster than the nation's food resources or employment opportunities, and whose members can be condemned to poverty by the need to feed extra mouths. Such countries may identify population controlThey identify population control as a means to improve living standards.
But the government should aim to achieve thistarget to achieve it in gradual steps and not make citizens angry in the process. Clearly, this whole area is a very delicate personal and cultural issue. Many people feel that this is not a matter for the state to decide. For that reason, it would seem that the best approach would be to work by persuasion rather than compulsion. This could be done by a process of education, awareness campaigns and advertisements that show howpoint out the way a smaller family can mean an improved quality of life for the family members, as well as placing less strainas well as less strain on the country's perhaps very limited resources.
This is the preferred way, but, if this does not succeed within a reasonable time scale, it may be necessary to consider other measures, such as tax incentives or child-benefit payments for small families only. These measures fall midwayThese are midway between persuasion and compulsion but would be effective, in my opinion.
It is sometimes logical, even necessary that governments should try very hard to persuade and educate people first to restrict the population growth. They should also remember that this is a very delicate area indeed, and should try to impose things gradually and never in a drastic mannernever drastically.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The essay presents a clear, nuanced position that accepts population control while prioritising persuasion and gradual measures, and it develops this stance through relevant economic, ethical, and policy considerations. Its main limitation is occasional awkward phrasing and a few general claims that could be supported more concretely. The highest-priority improvement is to add a specific real-world illustration of how education or tax incentives can reduce population growth without excessive coercion.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response maintains a clear qualified agreement and develops relevant reasons, ethical concerns, and graduated policy options in substantial detail.
Support the proposed education or tax measures with one concrete example showing how they could work in practice.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument progresses logically from the need for control to personal-freedom concerns and then to increasingly stronger interventions, with effective paragraphing and cohesive control.
Clarify the ambiguous reference in 'They identify population control' so every pronoun has an immediate, precise referent.
Lexical Resource
A wide range of precise policy and social vocabulary is used effectively, with only occasional awkward collocations such as 'take a one or two-children policy'.
Refine the few unnatural combinations by using forms such as 'adopt a one- or two-child policy' and 'aim to achieve this gradually'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The essay uses a broad variety of complex structures with strong control, though a few agreement, hyphenation, and clause-pattern errors remain.
Polish structures such as 'it may be necessary for governments to' and check compound modifiers such as 'two-child policy'.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some governments say how many children a family can have in their country should be strictly controlled. They may control the number of children someone has through taxes. It is sometimes necessary and right for a government to control the population in this way. Do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.