It is better for college students to live far away from home than live at home with their parents. Do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Student accommodation wields direct influences in their life and academic performance. I uphold the conviction that it is more necessary for student life to be spent a long distance from their parents.
Life on campus may be more advantageous for university students. It is undeniable that with the absence of parental care, students seem to have a chance to shoulder almost all the blame for their private life, ranging from doing household chores to manage personal finance, meticulously preparing certain life skills for their later life. Additionally, thanks to their shared accommodation, students might learn how to live and work in harmony with others, giving rise to improvements in social skills. Finally, students can accomplish higher academic outcomes by dint of mutual aid and support from friends by sharing learning materials or developing proper study strategies for each other, facilitating their study when sharing the room.
However, although living with parents during student life may bring several benefits ranging from parental care to feeling of safety, this lifestyle can be more detrimental. In fact, commuting to universities from home daily may deprive various students of a remarkable time which should have been allocated for for participating in recreational and extracurricular activities or sports events with a view to enhancing their physical health and develop their teamwork skills or communication competences. This physical stamina and these soft skills are prerequisites for paving the way for academic as well as professional success. In other words, were it not for these soft skills which appear easier to be developed in a self-reliant life, students would be at a disadvantage in the process of accumulating academic knowledge and professional qualifications for future employment.
In conclusion, based on the aforementioned explanations, it seems to me that enjoying campus life far from their parents is a more sensible decision than living under the same roof with their parents.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Fix preposition Original: with Suggested revision: in Why it matters: In the absence of is the correct fixed expression.
- 2. Correct the collocation Original: shoulder almost all the blame Suggested revision: take almost full responsibility Why it matters: Blame implies fault, whereas the intended meaning is responsibility for managing daily life.
- 3. Clarify daily responsibilities Original: their private life Suggested revision: their daily lives Why it matters: Daily lives better matches the examples of chores and personal finance.
- 4. Keep parallel form Original: to manage personal finance Suggested revision: managing their personal finances Why it matters: The gerund form maintains parallelism with doing household chores.
- 5. Fix verb choice Original: meticulously preparing certain life skills Suggested revision: thereby developing essential life skills Why it matters: Skills are developed rather than prepared, and thereby clarifies the result.
- 6. Make wording concise Original: giving rise to improvements in social skills Suggested revision: improving their social skills Why it matters: The direct verb expresses the same result more clearly and concisely.
- 7. Correct the collocation Original: accomplish higher academic outcomes Suggested revision: achieve better academic outcomes Why it matters: Academic outcomes are achieved, and better is the natural comparative here.
- 8. Use clear wording Original: by dint of Suggested revision: through Why it matters: Through states the means directly without the unnecessarily ornate expression.
- 9. Clarify the connection Original: by Suggested revision: through Why it matters: Through clearly introduces how the mutual support occurs.
- 10. Use plural noun Original: study Suggested revision: studies Why it matters: Studies is the natural noun for students' academic work in general.
- 11. Fix article and linker Original: when sharing the room Suggested revision: while sharing a room Why it matters: A singular countable room needs an article, and while expresses simultaneous activity clearly.
- 12. Add missing article Original: to feeling of safety Suggested revision: to a feeling of safety Why it matters: Feeling is a singular countable noun and requires an article here.
Suggested Rewrites
- with in
- shoulder almost all the blame take almost full responsibility
- their private life their daily lives
- to manage personal finance managing their personal finances
- meticulously preparing certain life skills thereby developing essential life skills
- giving rise to improvements in social skills improving their social skills
Why this response received Band 7.0
The essay maintains a clear position and offers a substantial range of relevant reasons for living away from home, with logical paragraph-level progression. Its impact is reduced by overextended reasoning and frequent unnatural word combinations, while several ambitious sentences contain grammatical faults. The priority is to express fewer claims more precisely, using natural collocations and cleaner sentence structures to make the argument more persuasive.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear agreement position is sustained and supported with several relevant benefits of independent campus life.
Develop the strongest reasons with concrete explanation and avoid claims that depend on broad assumptions about commuting or independence.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas are organised into a clear progression, although some long sentences carry too many loosely connected points.
Divide dense chains of reasoning into shorter units and make each paragraph revolve around one fully developed central claim.
Lexical Resource
The response demonstrates broad vocabulary, but frequent strained collocations reduce precision and naturalness.
Replace expressions such as shoulder the blame for private life and remarkable time with accurate, conventional wording.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex structures are attempted throughout, but errors in agreement, parallelism, articles, and sentence construction recur.
Prioritise accurate clause control and parallel forms, especially when writing long sentences with infinitives, relative clauses, or conditionals.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
It is better for college students to live far away from home than live at home with their parents. Do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.