Some people believe that success in life comes from taking risks or chances. Others believe that success results from careful planning. In your opinion, what does success come from?
Sample Response
Some people think that taking risksrisks and chances will lead them to success. From my experience and observationsFrom my everyday experience and observation, I believe that success results from careful planning. I base my position on the following points.
First of all, I believe that careful planning helps a person to analyse his goal more deeply and setmake realistic goals. He knows exactly what he wants. Taking chances, onfrom the other hand, does not provide an opportunity to understand a goal clearlydoes not give the opportunity to clearly understand a goal. A person just wants to do something to move forward and he takes risks when there is no need to do sowhen there is no need of it. A fixed plan helps a person achieve their goalhelps a person to achieve it and makesmake the person more determined and goal-orientedobject oriented than someone without a fixed aimthan those who don’t have a fixed aim.
Second, careful planning teaches people to managearrange their time more carefully in order to reach their goals. They become more patient and calm. They plan every step. This allows people to find an easier way to reach their goals and move forward faster. On the other hand, people who take risks without planningFrom the other hand, people who prefer to take risks without planning may spend more time without making any progresswithout any improvements waiting for an opportunitywaiting for a chance to take. Take athletessportsmen for example. They exercise a lot before competingbefore their performance to be in shape, do their bestdo all their best and improve on their previous resultsimprove their previous results.
Finally, careful planning teaches them not to give up and to try to findnot to give up, try to find other ways to reach their goals in case of failurein the case of failure. To sum up, personally, I think that all people who succeeded in life would agree with me that their success came through hard workcame with the hard work and careful planning.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response is strongest in maintaining a clear position and organising its reasons into a logical sequence. Its main limitation is that several points are asserted in general terms, while the sports example only partly demonstrates why planning produces success; recurrent awkward phrasing also reduces precision. The highest-priority improvement is to develop one or two reasons with more specific cause-and-effect explanation and then edit collocations and sentence structures for naturalness.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response presents a clear opinion and supports it with several relevant reasons, though some development remains general or only partly convincing.
Develop each main reason through a precise cause-and-effect chain and use an example that directly proves the advantage of planning.
Coherence and Cohesion
The essay follows a clear progression with focused paragraphs, although some transitions are mechanical and a few sentences connect loosely.
Use more natural logical links within paragraphs and ensure every example is explicitly tied back to the paragraph’s main claim.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is sufficient for the topic and shows some range, but recurring inaccurate collocations and word choices reduce precision.
Replace awkward expressions such as “from the other hand” and “object oriented” with natural academic collocations.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses both simple and complex structures, but errors in articles, prepositions, pronoun reference, and sentence construction recur.
Prioritise accurate clause construction and systematically check articles and prepositions during proofreading.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people believe that success in life comes from taking risks or chances. Others believe that success results from careful planning. In your opinion, what does success come from?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.