The best way to solve the world’s environmental problem is to increase the cost of fuel for cars and other vehicles. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Raising fuel prices is believed to be the best solution to the planet’s environmental problem. Although this measure may reduce the amount of toxic fumes that are released into the atmosphere to some extent, I believe there are several more effective alternatives to tackle environmental issues.
On the one hand, such a policy may help to lower emissions from certain modes of transport. As the price of fuel increases, commuters may resort to using public transport rather than driving their own vehiclesinstead of using their own vehicles in order to save money. Moreover, drivers who are unwilling to spend more money on petrol will be encouraged to use vehicles that run on renewable and environmentally friendlyenvironmentally-friendly energy sources as an alternative, such as electric cars and bicycles. As a consequence, the number of privately ownedprivately-owned vehicles travelling on public roads would be significantly reduced, thereby significantly reducingwhich in turn would significantly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year. This would effectively improve air qualityenhance the air quality.
However, as environmental issues stem from many causes, there are several more suitable ways to address these problems. People’s lack of awareness and knowledge about such problems is one of the primary underlying issues that resultresults in pollution. Therefore, the government must educate the public about the current state of thetheir environment and negative lifestyles in order to reduce the long-term impacts of this lack of awarenessimpacts of their ignorance. Additionally, water pollution is a severe issue in many developing countries these days and is often found downstream from industrial zones where factories discharge toxic waste without proper treatment. Such an issue requires governments to implement stricter regulations to minimize the negative health impacts and help sustain the economy.
In conclusion, since each problem requires a unique solution, it is justifiable to say that increasing the price of fuel is not the single best solution to environmental issuessingle best resolution for environmental issues.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response presents a clear, consistently maintained position and develops a persuasive comparison between fuel-price measures and broader environmental policies, supported by specific causal explanations. Its main limitation is occasional imprecision in examples and phrasing, particularly around renewable transport and public lifestyles. The highest-priority improvement is to sharpen these claims with more precise examples and explicitly show why the alternatives are more effective than fuel-price increases.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response fully addresses the proposition with a clear position and well-developed explanations of both the policy's limited value and stronger alternatives.
Make the comparative judgement even more explicit by directly weighing the likely impact of each alternative against a fuel-price increase.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically through well-focused paragraphs, and cohesive devices generally guide the reader smoothly without obscuring relationships.
Reduce minor repetition, especially in the transport paragraph, by varying sentence links and consolidating closely related consequences.
Lexical Resource
A wide and generally precise vocabulary supports detailed discussion, though a few combinations such as renewable vehicles and negative lifestyles are imprecise.
Choose more exact collocations for environmental behaviour and transport technology so that otherwise sophisticated claims remain fully natural.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses a wide range of complex structures with strong control, and the few errors, such as subject-verb disagreement, do not impede meaning.
Proofread long sentences for isolated agreement and reference errors while preserving the effective variety of subordinate structures.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
The best way to solve the world’s environmental problem is to increase the cost of fuel for cars and other vehicles. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.