Scientists and the news media are presenting ever more evidence of climate change. Governmnets cannot be expected to solve this problem. It is the responsibility of individuals to change their lifestyle to prevent further damage. What are your views?
Sample Response
Recently, scientistsRecently scientists worried about climate change have urged governments to introduce measures to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are seen as its main cause. SimultaneouslySimoultaneouslty, politicians and environmentalists have urged individuals to make changes to their lifestyle. I shall argue that governments and individuals should take jointjoin responsibility for this problem.
Firstly, industry accounts for a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissionsa large proportion of the greenhouse gas emissions, and thesethis can only be controlled by government action. Measures could be taken to discourage pollution, such as limiting or taxing the use of fossil fuels. Alternatively, subsidies could be offered to industries to clean up their production processes. If these ideas were adopted, I believe that businesses would treat pollution as a financial costregard pollution as a financial issue.
Secondly, only cooperationdiscussion between governments can ensure that solutions are successful. The Kyoto Agreementagreement, for example, tried to reach global agreement on how to address the problem. Without such cooperationWithout such co-operating, it seems to me that efforts to reduce fuel consumption are unlikely to be effective.
However, national and international policies will only succeed if individuals also change their lifestyleslifestyle. For example, people could think more carefully about how they use energy in their homes. By using less electricity, installing energy-efficient light bulbs and electrical appliances, or investing in solar panels, individuals can make a real difference.
In addition, I think individual attitudes to transport need to change. Instead of making short tripstips by car, people could choose to walk, cycle, or take a bus. Since cars are a major source of greenhouse gas emissionsmajor source of the problem, changing our behaviour in this area would have a major impact.
In conclusion, I would maintain that only a combination of international agreement, national policies, and changes in individual behaviour will succeed in preventing further damage to the environment.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response presents a clear, consistent case for shared responsibility and develops it through well-chosen government, international, household, and transport examples. Its progression and sentence control are strong, while the main weakness is a small cluster of spelling and word-form errors that reduce lexical precision. Careful proofreading, especially for less common words and fixed collocations, would make the otherwise polished argument more accurate.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response directly answers the question with a consistent position and develops relevant responsibilities for governments and individuals in detail.
Deepen the evaluation by briefly weighing the relative limits of individual action against the reach of government policy.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument progresses logically through clearly focused paragraphs, and cohesive devices guide the reader effectively despite slightly visible sequencing.
Vary or reduce paragraph-opening signposts such as Firstly and Secondly so that transitions arise even more naturally from the ideas.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is broad and generally precise, but several spelling and word-form slips, including join responsibility and short tips, reduce accuracy.
Proofread less familiar vocabulary and fixed expressions carefully, correcting forms such as joint responsibility, cooperation, and short trips.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of sentence structures is used accurately and flexibly, with nearly all clauses remaining well controlled.
Preserve this strong structural range while checking the few local form errors during a final sentence-by-sentence edit.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Scientists and the news media are presenting ever more evidence of climate change. Governmnets cannot be expected to solve this problem. It is the responsibility of individuals to change their lifestyle to prevent further damage. What are your views?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.