Many people today are choosing to travel to other countries. Why is this happening? Is this a positive or negative development?
Sample Response
More and more people today are choosing to travel internationally. This positive development is mainly because of a rise in middle-class incomesmiddle class income coupled with advances in aviation.
People today can afford to travel as it has become more convenient. The last half century has seen wages in both developed and developing countriescompanies climb with the concomitant expansion of the global middle class. Workers have the disposable income to travel that they lacked in the past. This has been complemented bywith safer airplanes so individuals are not afraid to fly. Airfares have also become cheaper as companies like Boeing produce more efficient planes, competition between airlines intensifiescompetition intensifies between competing airlines, and the supply exceeds demand for flightssupply more than meets demand for flights. These factors combined have spawned a golden age of international travel.
Putting this opportunity into perspectiveLooking at the opportunity in perspective, it is hard to see the advent of international travel as anything less than one of mankind’s greatest achievements. For the entirety of human history, most people lived and died near wherenear to where they were born. Anyone who wanted to travel to another country had to possess enormousenourmous wealth, time, and courage. Today, the average employee can save up and travel to see the wonders of the RenaissanceRennaissance in Southern Europe, the vast monuments to history and modernity in China, or explore any other corner of Earth that has piqued their interest. This is an unprecedented opportunity unavailable to past generations.
In conclusion, international travel is a byproduct of the modern age and we should all be grateful that it is possiblegrateful for its possibility. There are clear environmental drawbacks but those should not blind people to its overall benefitsbenefits taken as a whole.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response is strongest in its confident, well-supported explanation of why international travel has expanded, using income and aviation developments to build a persuasive case. Its main limitation is that the positive evaluation leans heavily on broad historical contrast and only briefly acknowledges the environmental drawback; the highest-priority improvement is to deepen the evaluation by weighing that drawback against the claimed personal and cultural benefits.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response fully answers both questions with a clear positive position and well-developed explanations of affordability, aviation, and access.
Deepen the evaluation by directly weighing the briefly mentioned environmental cost against the benefits of wider travel.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically through focused paragraphs, and cohesive devices guide the reader smoothly without drawing attention to themselves.
Make the transition into the benefits paragraph more direct so its evaluative role is immediately apparent.
Lexical Resource
A wide and effective vocabulary supports precise argument, although a few spelling errors and awkward choices reduce complete accuracy.
Proofread words such as 'enormous' and 'Renaissance' and replace imprecise choices such as 'developing companies' with the intended terms.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses varied complex structures with strong control, and the few grammatical lapses do not impede communication.
Refine occasional preposition and reference choices, particularly in phrases such as 'complemented with safer airplanes'.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Many people today are choosing to travel to other countries. Why is this happening? Is this a positive or negative development?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.