In many countries, a small number of people earn extremely high salaries. Some people believe that this is good for the country, but others think that governments should not allow salaries above a certain level. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.
Sample Response
Many argue that allowing a handful of individuals to earn astronomical salaries can promote national prosperitydrives national prosperity, while others insist that governments must cap earnings to ensure fairness. Although I acknowledge the arguments for the former viewreasons behind the former view, I am still in favor of the latter.
Admittedly, allowing extremely high salaries can indeed spur economic growth and innovation. Regarding economic benefits, competitive compensation can attractentice leading experts whose innovative work strengthens industrial leadershipinventive efforts propel industrial leadership. For example, global tech firms invest heavily in executive pay to secure pioneering talent, thereby accelerating product development and market share gains. Moreover, higherburgeoning tax revenues from these high earners significantly bolster government budgets and create a sustainable funding stream. With these enhanced resources, authorities can invest in critical infrastructure—such as transportation networks and healthcare facilities—and expand social services, thereby elevating overall living standards.
Nevertheless, I believe that capping salaries may curb inequality and promote social cohesion. The first reason is that imposing income ceilings narrows the gap between the richest and the poorest by limiting excessive earnings. For example, cooperatives enforce rigid pay ratios—capping executive wages at five times the lowest salary—and thus cultivate moregenuinely equitable workplaces. Furthermore, social mobility can be improvedenhanced social mobility can be fostered by channeling a share of excessive earnings into public education. Specifically, when redistributed earnings bolster school and scholarship budgets, funding for educational programmes increases substantially. Consequently, broader access to learning opportunities helps reduce entrenched privilegedismantles entrenched privilege and empowers individuals from underprivileged backgrounds.
In conclusion, while generous remuneration packages attract expertise and increase tax revenuesaugment tax inflows, I believe that instituting reasonable salary caps is vital to reduce wealth disparities and ensure that all citizens have a fair chance to succeed.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response is strongest in its direct coverage of both views, consistently clear opinion, and well-developed causal explanations supported by specific examples. The main limitation is a slight conceptual gap between imposing a salary ceiling and redistributing excessive earnings for education, alongside a few densely formal word choices. The highest-priority improvement is to make the proposed policy mechanism fully consistent so every supporting point directly demonstrates how salary caps would produce the claimed benefit.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Both views are addressed directly and in depth, and the writer's preference for reasonable salary caps remains clear throughout.
Clarify how capped earnings would be redirected into education, since that mechanism currently resembles taxation more than a salary ceiling.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response is very well organised, with controlled paragraph development, clear logical sequencing, and cohesive devices that rarely attract attention.
Make the transition from pay ratios to education funding more explicit so the second argument follows seamlessly from the salary-cap policy.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is wide, precise, and flexibly deployed, with only occasional phrasing that feels slightly over-formal or less exact than the surrounding language.
Prefer the most exact policy terms and moderate a few elevated choices where plainer wording would communicate the argument more naturally.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide variety of complex structures is handled with excellent control, and the response is virtually free from grammatical error.
Maintain this accuracy while occasionally shortening densely modified sentences to make sophisticated arguments even easier to process.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
In many countries, a small number of people earn extremely high salaries. Some people believe that this is good for the country, but others think that governments should not allow salaries above a certain level. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.