In some countries, young people are encouraged to work or travel for a year between finishing high school and starting university studies. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for young people who decide to do this.
Sample Response
Taking a study break after high school and before starting university is very common in certain countries. Many people take a year break to either travel and explore different countries or they may take up some job in gain experience. This practice has both pros and cons.
First of all, taking a break could really help people rechargehelp in rejuvenating people. When you travel, you gain a lot of experience. Usually, when people are in high school they live under protected home environment; in the case of any problem, you can seek parents and friends help and advice. But when you travel, you are on your own and if you face any problem, you learn to deal with it. This not only gives you the experience to deal with tough situations later in lifelater in the life but also buildsgives confidence.
Many timesMany a times, young people are confused regarding their career options and are often in a dilemmain dilemma regarding the subjects to choose at universitysubjects to choose in universities. Taking up a job before university can help them identify their field of interesthelp in identifying the field of interest and provide relevant experience. At the same time it also makes them financially independent, some students often save money to fund their university study with this. For instance, before starting university, I was confused whether I should go for computer engineering or electronics engineering; but after working in a small start-up computer companysmall start up computer company, I realised that I liked coding and would spend hours in front of computers to automate several processesprocess. This work experience helped me make up my mindhelped me in clearing up my mind and I was completely confident100 percent confident that this was something I would study and pursue as a careerthis is something I would study and having a career in.
Sometimes taking a break can also have negative effects on young peoplenegative impacts on people. When young people start workingWhen ones start working, people often take up low-skilled jobsjobs that require low skills yet provide easy money. For example, jobs like salesman, BPO jobs etc. Since people become financially independent, they might continue doing the same job and never return to universitynever join university back. It is quite evident in developed countries where many students take up menial jobs and drop out of universities.
In conclusion, as every coin has two sides; on one side taking a break can really help some people to gain exposure to the world, understand the diversity and make better career choices. On the other side, it may damage their future prospectsruin their whole life, easy access to money can restrict their desire to pursue further studydesire to further studies. It is therefore very crucial that one evaluates all the options and takestake an informed decision
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response gives a clear and well-supported account of several benefits, particularly independence and informed career choice, and it also identifies a relevant disadvantage. The negative side is comparatively brief and sometimes overstated, while frequent grammatical and collocational slips reduce precision; the highest priority is to develop a more measured disadvantage with specific explanation and then edit sentence boundaries, articles, and word forms carefully.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Both advantages and disadvantages are addressed, with the benefits developed convincingly through explanation and a specific personal example.
Develop the disadvantage beyond a single dropout scenario and avoid exaggerated claims that a gap year may ruin an entire life.
Coherence and Cohesion
The paragraph sequence is clear and the argument progresses logically, though some long sentences contain loosely connected ideas.
Separate run-on sentences and use referencing consistently instead of shifting among 'people', 'you', and personal experience.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is varied enough to discuss experience, careers, and financial independence, but awkward collocations and word-form choices recur.
Use more natural combinations such as 'gain experience', 'clarify my thinking', and 'return to university'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex structures is attempted successfully, but frequent errors with articles, agreement, possessives, and sentence boundaries remain noticeable.
Proofread each sentence for a complete clause structure and check articles, singular-plural agreement, and possessive forms systematically.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
In some countries, young people are encouraged to work or travel for a year between finishing high school and starting university studies. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for young people who decide to do this.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.