In the modern world, there is a movement away from written exams to more practical assessment. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this trend.
Sample Response
One of the burning issues in today’s world is the most accurate methodthe accurate method of evaluating students with practical tests instead of traditional written ones. There is some debateThere are some debates over the relative usefulness and accuracy ofthe more usefulness and precision between these two methods and in this essay, I shall discuss both the benefits and negative consequences of this trend. To begin with, it is widely accepted that technologythe technology has dramatically changed the way we teach and evaluate students. So, in order to keep pace with new developments and improved methodsfollow new and improved developments and methods, we need new techniques in teaching. Therefore, new assessment methods are neededthe new trend of evaluating are needed because old ones may no longer assessin order that old ones can no longer assess how much students understand their courses. There is convincing evidencea convincing evidence that written exams are time-consuming and cannot measure students’ knowledgeillustrate student’s knowledge correctly since some people only memorise everything very fast, but eventually, they forget everything even faster. Having said that, it must not be ignored that it is actually difficult to score students based on their performanceby their performance even if the practical approach of evaluating is followed. It also depends on examiners’ judgementthe perception of examiners and having experienced teachers in our educational institutes is also a challenge. In addition, more time and money have to be spent on practical tests with fixed grading criteriafixed criteria of grading. Thus it is the obvious reason why traditional methods have retained their popularityhave been kept its popularity till now. Additionally, in some courses such as historysuch as history and so on there are insufficient scope for practical assessmentno sufficient requirements on practical assessment, hence traditional methods can assess students appropriatelytraditional methods can estimate appropriately and in areas like this, a combination of assessment systemsa combination of exam system should exist. Overall, despite some drawbacks of practical tests, they have become one of the main methodsit has become one of the main procedures of evaluating students recently but written exams are also widely used all around the world. I believe that both types of exams are required for assessing students’ skills and abilitiesinvestigating students skills and abilities.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response covers both advantages and disadvantages and offers several relevant points, particularly about memorisation, subjective marking, cost, and subject suitability. Its main weakness is that some ideas are expressed unclearly or asserted without enough explanation, while the absence of clear paragraph breaks weakens organisation. Prioritise developing one concrete advantage and one disadvantage fully in distinct body paragraphs, using more accurate sentence structures and collocations.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response addresses both sides and reaches a relevant conclusion, but several main points remain general, implicit, or only partly developed.
Explain clearly how practical assessment improves evaluation and support each side with a specific, fully developed example.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument follows a recognisable sequence and uses linking expressions, but it is presented as one long paragraph and some connections are mechanical or unclear.
Separate the advantages, disadvantages, and conclusion into distinct paragraphs with one central idea in each.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is sufficiently varied for the topic, although recurrent awkward collocations and imprecise word choices reduce naturalness.
Use more conventional combinations such as assessment methods, measure knowledge, and retain popularity, checking each phrase for precision.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex structures conveys the main meaning, but agreement, article, possessive, and noun-form errors recur.
Proofread systematically for subject-verb agreement, articles, plural forms, and possessive apostrophes before finalising the response.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
In the modern world, there is a movement away from written exams to more practical assessment. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this trend.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.