In Britain, when someone gets old they often go to live in a home with other old people where there are nurses to look after them. Sometimes the government has to pay for this care. Who do you think should pay for this care, the government or the family?

Same questionCompare 5 different answers (Band 5.5–6.5)

Sample Response

1

A visible change of any living organism is getting older. Childhood, youth, adulthood, and old ageChild, youth, adult and elder are some of the stages in our liveslife. Childhood and old ageChild and elderly stages are dependent stages compared with the other two stagescompared to other two stages. For both of these situations, a human being needs others' supportother’s support.

2

While we were children, our parents were there to support usour parents were there for our supportive role. When parents grow olderWhen the parents became older, their children definitely needdefinitely their children need to play a supportive rolebe the supportive role for their parents. This is the role that human beings fulfil reciprocallywe carry among human beings vice versa. If the parents live with their children only parents will feel safer, attached to family and sharing of love. Unfortunately, many of them attending to works, they do not have time to look after their children neither their parents. In this case, elderly people could be sentelders could be sending to a shared care facilityto some a common place where other elders are staying. But payment cannot be made by the government.

3

Since it is the responsibility of their family, definitely family needs to pay for the care of their parentsfor caring of their parents. They may not have enough time to take care of their parents. Since the government has employed special people for that, at least the care of those elderly people should be paid for by their familiesthose elders’ parents need to be paid by their family.

4

For exampleFor an example, many of the parents were private sector employees and they did not have a monthly pension scheme. But they have only Employee provident fund and employee trust funds. They have been usedIt has been used by the children of the parents in plantation sector of Sri Lanka. Finally, children will look after neither their parents nor ensure that elderly parents have their own money availableneither look after their parents nor elderly parents do not have own money in hand. That is, all advantages utilised from elders. When they become a stage of the dependent, families are trying to escape from their responsibilities. This is a kind of selfishnessselfish. Paid by the government should be stopped and families should pay for themfamilies should be paid for them.

5

Especially the children are responsible for looking after the parents; they should definitely pay for the parents and not the government.

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 5.5

The response gives a consistent answer that families should pay and offers a relevant moral principle of reciprocal responsibility, supported by an attempted financial example. However, the reasoning is repetitive and sometimes unclear, and frequent grammatical and lexical errors regularly strain comprehension. The highest-priority improvement is to organise two clear reasons for family payment, explain the example in simple accurate sentences, and address families who genuinely cannot afford care.

Band score breakdown

IELTS Writing Criteria Scores

TR

Task Response

5.5
Scoring rule

A clear position is maintained and supported by relevant ideas about family duty and parental resources, but development is repetitive, uneven, and sometimes difficult to follow.

Next step

Develop two distinct reasons for family responsibility and consider whether government support is justified for low-income households.

CC

Coherence and Cohesion

5.5
Scoring rule

Paragraphing provides a basic sequence from dependency to responsibility and an example, but repetition and unclear referencing weaken progression within and between sections.

Next step

Give each paragraph one central claim and use explicit nouns rather than ambiguous references such as they, them, and those elders' parents.

LR

Lexical Resource

5.0
Scoring rule

The vocabulary is sufficient to express the main position, but limited flexibility and frequent inaccurate word combinations often obscure the intended meaning.

Next step

Use precise recurring terms such as elderly parents, residential care, family responsibility, government funding, pension, and financial support.

GRA

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

5.0
Scoring rule

Some sentence structures are controlled, but frequent errors in verb forms, agreement, articles, coordination, and passive construction cause regular difficulty for the reader.

Next step

Write shorter subject-verb-object sentences and check each one for a complete verb before combining ideas with conjunctions.

Put the feedback to work

Write this task while it is fresh

Try the same task now. It helps you remember the feedback and write better next time.

IELTS Writing Task 2

In Britain, when someone gets old they often go to live in a home with other old people where there are nurses to look after them. Sometimes the government has to pay for this care. Who do you think should pay for this care, the government or the family?

Your response

Words0
40:00

Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.