Today, the high sales of popular consumer goods reflect the power of advertising and not the real needs of the society in which they are sold. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Nowadays, millions of companies produce billions of consumer products each year, and the role of advertising is quite obvious here: to attracthere - to attract more consumers and increase salesmake more sales. Adverts are supposed to help customers find goods or services that meet their needsmatch their requirements. However, they are also powerful toolsthe most powerful tool to shape consumers' purchasing habits in society. I believe that modern commercials are not merely intermediaries between products and buyersmatchmakers of a product and a buyer; rather, they, rather they actively interfere with buyers' desires and create artificial needsbuyers' desires, developing artificial needs.
Advertisements are supposed to help people learn aboutguide people to learn about different features of various products and make them awareconscious of what to expect from a service. However, behind the scenesscene, such adverts create artificial needs in our minds and constantly push us to buy the latest models or new products regardless of whether we really need themnew products bypassing our real needs of them. When such advertisements falsely promise us to be more young and attractive if we buy and use their products, we are often the puppet in their hand. Market-full of cosmetics, which have even overgrown the necessary sectors in many countries, just indicate how advertisements shape consumers' buying habits rather than their real needs.
Unfortunately, promoters of goods and services now influence our decisions more stronglycontrol our minds more aggressively. Commercials no longer promote products but lifestylesproducts, but lifestyles. They tell us to purchase things just because they are fashionable or consistent with the imageup to date with the image of a successful person. Consequently, we buyAnd we buy new cars, gadgets and clothes in order to match this image rather than because our existing possessions are unusableand not because old ones are no longer usable.
In conclusion, I think that high sales of popular commodities in modern society are the result of modern promotional techniquesnew promotional technologies and sophisticated advertising strategiestactful advertisement policy rather than people's real needs.
[ Source: Cambridge IELTS Book 6 ]
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response presents a clear, consistent position and develops it through relevant explanations about artificial demand and lifestyle marketing. Its main limitation is that several supporting claims remain broad, while recurrent awkward collocations and grammatical slips reduce precision despite the generally clear message. The highest-priority improvement is to express the examples in more natural, accurate language and explain their connection to sales more fully.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response directly answers the question with a clear position and relevant ideas about advertising creating artificial needs.
Develop the examples more specifically by showing how particular advertising techniques translate into high sales despite limited genuine need.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically from advertising's intended role to artificial demand and lifestyle promotion, with clear paragraphing.
Strengthen the link between the cosmetics example and the following lifestyle argument so that the development feels less segmented.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a reasonably broad vocabulary for advertising and consumer behaviour, but several collocations are awkward or inaccurate.
Replace phrases such as “more young,” “market-full of cosmetics,” and “tactful advertisement policy” with natural, precise alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of simple and complex structures communicates the argument clearly, although recurring article, agreement, comparison, and sentence-boundary errors reduce control.
Proofread complex sentences for comparative forms, subject-verb agreement, articles, and comma splices before finalising the response.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Today, the high sales of popular consumer goods reflect the power of advertising and not the real needs of the society in which they are sold. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.