Some parents buy their children a large number of toys to play with. What are the advantages and disadvantages for the child of having a large number of toys?
Sample Response
These days, a growing number of parents spend money on purchasing a lot of toys for their children. Some do so because they want to make their children happy, while others believe that it helps their child's intellectual development. Despite good intentions, this trend can have both advantages and drawbacks. The following paragraphs are going to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of children having a large number of toys.
One of the major advantages of giving young children a wider range of toys is the intellectual benefits it offers. Good toys engage a child's senses, spark their imaginations and encourage them to interact with others. For example, lego blocks can help preschoolers learn letters, numbers and language skills, while also developing their intellectual abilities. Many toys are made for children's educational and development purposes. For example, blocks, educational computer games, puzzles etc. and they ignite the creativity of children and let them find out their interests. Moreover, it can improve their communication skill by encouraging them to use those playthings and play with other children. Communication plays an essential role in our life and the toys can help them have playmates with whom they communicate a lot.
On the contrary, children having too many playthings may be affected by some detrimental effects. First, it can make them greedy. For instance, many parents spoil their children by purchasing every toy the children want. This can give them an impression that they can have anything they wish and their desire to own more toys grows over time. When children get every toy they want, they will not value most of the toys and lose interest easily. This will not offer them any benefits of playing with good toys. Furthermore, too many toys may grow a conformist mentality in a child as their immature minds blindly follow other children's playing styles, activities and characters. It does not let a child develop his or her personality and character.
In conclusion, toys play an important role in helping a child's growth, but too many toys may affect children's psychological development negatively. Therefore, parents should choose useful toys and purchase a reasonable number of toys that they feel are right for their children.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Fix agreement and reference Original: is the intellectual benefits it offers Suggested revision: lies in the intellectual benefits they offer Why it matters: The revision agrees with the plural toys and correctly links the advantage to its benefits.
- 2. Keep singular reference Original: spark their imaginations Suggested revision: spark a child's imagination Why it matters: The singular phrase keeps the reference consistent with a child's senses in the same list.
- 3. Capitalize brand name Original: lego Suggested revision: LEGO Why it matters: LEGO is a proper brand name and requires capitalization.
- 4. Clarify pronoun and number Original: it can improve their communication skill Suggested revision: these toys can improve children's communication skills Why it matters: The revision supplies a clear plural subject and uses the natural plural communication skills.
- 5. Use plural noun Original: life Suggested revision: lives Why it matters: The plural possessive our requires lives when referring to people's individual lives generally.
- 6. Use contrast transition Original: On the contrary Suggested revision: However Why it matters: However introduces a contrasting disadvantage, while on the contrary normally refutes a preceding statement.
- 7. Remove lexical repetition Original: be affected by some detrimental effects Suggested revision: experience some detrimental effects Why it matters: Experience effects avoids the repetitive and awkward affected by effects construction.
- 8. Use definite article Original: an Suggested revision: the Why it matters: The fixed expression is give someone the impression that.
- 9. Use correct collocation Original: grow Suggested revision: foster Why it matters: Foster, rather than grow, collocates with the development of a mentality.
- 10. Use correct verb pattern Original: does not let a child develop Suggested revision: may prevent a child from developing Why it matters: Prevent takes from plus the gerund and also maintains the paragraph's cautious claim.
- 11. Use concise verb pattern Original: spend money on purchasing Suggested revision: spend money purchasing Why it matters: Removing on makes the spend money plus gerund construction more direct and natural.
- 12. Clarify pronoun reference Original: it helps their child's intellectual development Suggested revision: this supports their child's intellectual development Why it matters: This clearly refers to buying toys, avoiding the vague pronoun it.
Suggested Rewrites
- is the intellectual benefits it offers lies in the intellectual benefits they offer
- spark their imaginations spark a child's imagination
- lego LEGO
- it can improve their communication skill these toys can improve children's communication skills
- life lives
- On the contrary However
Why this response received Band 7.0
The essay addresses both sides directly and develops relevant ideas about learning, creativity, communication, greed, appreciation, and personal development. Its main limitation is that some claims are repetitive or only partly convincing, especially the link between many toys and a conformist mentality, while several grammatical and collocational errors reduce precision. The highest-priority improvement is to select the strongest advantage and disadvantage and support each with a clear, credible cause-and-effect example.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Both advantages and disadvantages are substantially developed with relevant examples, although one or two claims are not fully convincing or clearly supported.
Explain more plausibly how toy abundance affects a child's behaviour, or replace the conformity point with a stronger disadvantage such as reduced concentration.
Coherence and Cohesion
The four-paragraph structure creates clear progression and each body paragraph has a distinct purpose, despite some repetitive development and imperfect sentence links.
Remove repeated discussion of intellectual benefits and use one complete example sentence rather than the fragment listing toys.
Lexical Resource
The essay uses a sufficient range for education, creativity, interaction, and psychology, but awkward collocations and repetition are noticeable.
Use natural expressions such as 'support development', 'discover their interests', 'develop communication skills', and 'foster a sense of entitlement'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of simple and complex structures communicates the ideas clearly, though agreement, pronoun reference, fragments, and singular-plural control are inconsistent.
Maintain plural reference to children and toys, and revise fragments such as the sentence beginning 'For example, blocks'.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some parents buy their children a large number of toys to play with. What are the advantages and disadvantages for the child of having a large number of toys?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.