Should a city try to preserve its old, historic buildings or destroy them and replace them with modern buildings? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
Sample Response
Some people think that old, historic buildings are unnecessary for the cityare no need for the city and they should be destroyed and replaced with modern ones. However, other people believe that historic buildings must be preserved to understand and remember our pastin order to know and remember our past. For several reasons that I will mention belowbellow I agree with people who wantthose people who want to preserve old, historical buildings. First of all, by preserving historical buildings we pass our history on to future generationspass our history to our future generations. I think that ourout children should know their history, learn from it, and respect itknow their history, learn from it and respect it. People need to know their traditions and customs, which are priceless and irreplaceable. Our history is our knowledge and power. InFrom my opinion we need to preserve and restore historical buildings. By destroying them we show disrespectshow our disrespect to our forefathers and their traditions. SecondlySecond of all, by preserving historical buildings a city can attract many touriststravelers. Welcoming tourists a city can get many benefits including money, which can be spent on preserving historical buildings as well as on improving roads and facilities. Also, many tourists mean many new business opportunitiesa lot of new business opportunities. Another benefit is thatAnother important aspect of this is that business ownersbusinessmen will be willing to build new recreational centers, hotels, movie theaters, and shopping centersrecreational centers, hotels, movie theaters, shopping centers to make the city more attractive to travelersa city more attractive for travelers. In addition to thesethose practical benefits, many people will have employment opportunitiesthe opportunity to get a job. All this is good for the economy of the city. To sum up, I believe that preserving old, historical buildings can bring only benefits to a city and all humankind.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response has a clear position and develops two relevant benefits of preserving historic buildings, with the economic argument showing useful cause-and-effect progression. Its main limitation is that support remains general and the entire essay is presented as one paragraph, while recurring grammar and word-choice errors reduce precision. The priority is to organize the reasons into distinct paragraphs and add a concrete example for each.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The writer answers the question directly and gives two relevant, extended reasons, though the supporting examples remain broad rather than specific.
Include a concrete historic-building example and show exactly how its preservation benefits education or the local economy.
Coherence and Cohesion
The sequence from cultural value to tourism and employment is easy to follow, but the absence of paragraph breaks weakens organization.
Separate the introduction, each main reason, and the conclusion into purposeful paragraphs with less mechanical linking.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is sufficient for the topic and includes some effective terms, but spelling and unnatural collocations recur.
Correct recurring choices such as from my opinion and are no need, and proofread words such as below and our.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses both simple and complex sentences, but errors in articles, sentence openings, and clause construction are noticeable.
Review article use and introductory clauses, adding commas where needed and rewriting unidiomatic grammatical patterns.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Should a city try to preserve its old, historic buildings or destroy them and replace them with modern buildings? Use specific reasons and examples to support your opinion.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.