Nowadays we are producing more and more rubbish. Why do you think this is happening? What can governments do to help reduce the amount of rubbish produced?
Sample Response
It is clear thatI think it is true that in almost every country today each householdeach household and family produces a large amount of waste every week. Most of this rubbish comes from the packaging offrom the things we buy, such as that used for processed foodsuch as processed food. But even if we buy unpackaged fresh foodfresh food without packaging, we still produce rubbish from the plastic bags used to carry our shopping homeused everywhere to carry shopping home. The reason why we have so much packaging is that we consume much more each dayso much more on a daily basis than families did in the past. Convenience is also very important in modern life, so we buy packagedpackaging or canned food that can be transported overfrom long distances and stored untiluntill we need it, first in the supermarket, and then at home. However, I think the amount of waste producedproduce is also a result of our tendency to use items only onceour tendency to use something once and throw it away. We forget that even the cheapest plastic bag has used up valuable resources and energy to produce. We also forget that it is a source of pollution and difficult to dispose of. I think, therefore, that governments need to raise public awareness of this issueraise this awareness in the general public. Children can be educated about environmental issues at school, but adults need to take action. Governments can encourage such action by imposingputting taxes on packaging, such as plastic bags, by providing recycling services and by finingthing households and shops that do not attempt to recycle their waste. With sufficientthe political will, such measures could substantiallyreally reduce the amount of rubbish we produce. Certainly, nobodyCertainly nobody wants to see our resources used up and our planet poisoned by waste.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response gives a focused, well-developed explanation of rising waste and links practical government actions coherently to consumer behaviour. Its strongest feature is the natural progression from packaging and convenience to education, taxation, and recycling, while the main limitation is a small number of conspicuous word-form or wording errors. Prioritise a final proofread to remove these slips and preserve the otherwise precise argument.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response directly addresses both questions with well-developed causes and relevant, practical government measures.
Strengthen the policy discussion further by briefly explaining how enforcement would change household and business behaviour.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress smoothly through causes, consequences, and solutions, with cohesive devices used naturally despite limited visible paragraphing.
Separate the causes and government responses into distinct paragraphs to make the strong logical structure immediately visible.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied, precise, and well suited to environmental policy, with only a few conspicuous wording and spelling slips.
Proofread carefully for isolated errors such as untill, waste produce, and the unclear phrase by thing.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of complex sentences is handled accurately, and the few grammatical slips do not impede communication.
Check reduced clauses and passive forms at the editing stage so isolated form errors are removed.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Nowadays we are producing more and more rubbish. Why do you think this is happening? What can governments do to help reduce the amount of rubbish produced?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.