Some think that governments should support retired people financially while others believe they should take care of themselves. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
Sample Response
Many today have come to the conclusion that retireesretired seniors should be supported by the government and not left to their own meagre resources. While I agree there are certain cases where governments are responsible for providing supportgovernments are liable, citizens ought to be incentivised to handle their own finances.
The main reason many support a government backed retirement plan is the difficult circumstances faced by many seniorsdire condition of many seniors. There are a number of possible causes deserving due attention. Some seniors are without family, others may be war veterans and have trouble finding work due to physical or psychological impairments, and still others may be victims of economic downturns. Without support they must dependfall on the mercy of society and may end up relying on soup kitchens and seekingwill wind up at soup kitchens and seeking out ongoing charitable supportchronic charity or even begging. Simply put, governments are their last refuge and in the best position to lend a helping hand.
Despite the rare instances mentioned above, nations ought to encourage responsibility for one’s own futureownership of one’s own future. If all citizens knew the government would provide a decent retirement fund for them, they would have little incentive to work hard, save money and make wise investments. Governments deal with large sample sizes and, granted this would not happen with many responsible adults, it still poses a sizeable national risk. An analogy isAn analogous example of this is the way parents raise their children. They provide for them early on, much like how governments offer free schooling, but then children are expected to grow up and take responsibility for their own lives. Parents whothat coddle their children for too long end up spoiling them in the same way that a national retirement fund would deprive individuals of the opportunity to become self-reliant.
In conclusion, the advantages of a more self-assured, mature citizenry outweigh the odd unavoidable case of desperation. There should be a degree of balance to allow for these exceptions while still nurturing more life-affirming values.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response is persuasive and well organised, giving both perspectives meaningful attention while sustaining a nuanced preference for personal responsibility with targeted state support. Its main limitation is occasional imprecise or overstated phrasing, particularly around incentives and the scale of government risk. Refining those claims and choosing more exact collocations would make the reasoning consistently authoritative.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Both views are directly discussed, the writer's qualified opinion remains clear, and the main ideas are well extended with relevant reasoning and illustration.
Qualify broad claims about citizens losing motivation and explain more precisely how a balanced support system would operate.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument progresses smoothly from exceptional need to general self-reliance, with well-managed paragraphs and cohesive relationships.
Make the transition from individual examples to the national-risk claim slightly more explicit to strengthen the logical chain.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is flexible, varied, and often precise, with only occasional strained expressions such as chronic charity and large sample sizes.
Replace the few unusual collocations with more idiomatic policy language while preserving the response's strong lexical range.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex structures are varied and controlled throughout, and the few minor slips do not affect clarity.
Polish minor punctuation and hyphenation details, especially in compound modifiers, to achieve greater technical consistency.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some think that governments should support retired people financially while others believe they should take care of themselves. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.