In many major cities of the world, you will find large public buildings, both new and old. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such buildings. How important is it for a country to construct impressive public buildings when houses are want is really required?
Sample Response
A public building is a building that is owned or operated by the statebelongs in some way to the state. The number of public buildings in any town or village will depend on the size of that community and its needs. For example, you will usually find a town hall of some sort, a school and a place of worship at leastat the least. In larger communities, there will beIn larger communities there will be a police station, law courts, a library and perhapsmaybe a theatre funded by the state. The desire to build impressive buildings has a long historyis not new. The ancient cities of the Middle East and South America were designed aroundwith large public buildings to impress visitors and enemies and foster civic pridegive a sense of pride. In modern times, outstanding public buildings still create a great sense of local and national pride. They are what givegives a city its character and they serve as social centres, placesform a social centre, a place where people like to meet. However, some people argue that governments have constructed unnecessary, and sometimes ugly, buildings primarily to enhance their own prestigesimply to make themselves feel important. I tend to feel that such buildings may be a waste of public money but I am not sure we can claim that they prevent houses from being built, because these governments have often ensured that adequate housing was also available. Houses and public buildings can exist side by side. The answer lies in finding the right balance. We want to feel pride in our town, but we also want our citizens to have comfortable homes. It is hard to please everyone.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response's strongest feature is its clear, balanced position that civic landmarks can foster pride and social life while housing needs must still be met. The main limitation is underdevelopment: considerable space defines public buildings, while the disadvantages and housing trade-off receive only brief assertions; the priority is to replace introductory examples with specific explanation of costs, opportunity costs, and conditions for balancing the two needs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response addresses the benefits, drawbacks, and housing question with a clear balanced view, though support for the latter points is brief.
Develop the financial disadvantage and housing opportunity cost with a specific explanation or example.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument moves clearly from background to benefits, drawbacks, and a final judgment, but its single dense paragraph obscures those stages.
Divide the response into an introduction, separate discussion paragraphs, and a concise conclusion.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and generally precise, with appropriate language for civic functions, public spending, and community pride.
Reduce repetition of 'public buildings' by using accurate alternatives only where the reference remains unambiguous.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A useful range of simple and complex sentences is largely accurate, with only occasional agreement and punctuation slips.
Proofread subject-verb agreement in relative constructions and remove unnecessary commas around essential modifiers.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
In many major cities of the world, you will find large public buildings, both new and old. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such buildings. How important is it for a country to construct impressive public buildings when houses are want is really required?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.