There is an increasing trend around the world of married couples deciding not to have children. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for couples who decide to do this.
Sample Response
An increasing number of married couples around the world choosing to remain childless. The main benefits of remaining childless for couplesnot having a child for couples are that they can focus on their careers and have more time for themselves. The main drawbacks are that they maycould not fit into their peer grouppeers’ group and have no one to look after them when they get old. One primary advantage of remaining childless for married couples is that they can focus on their work. This is because they have fewer responsibilities and distractionsless responsibility and distractions in their lives than couples who have childrencompared to the couples that have a child. Another advantage of remaining childlessAnother advantage of this is that they have more spare time. Looking after a child is a full-time job for parents and takes up most of their timeand taking most of their time, while child-free couples have considerably more free timelots of free time after work. For example, many couples stop going out late with their friends after having a child as they have to stay at home to look after their childrenfor looking after their children. One disadvantage of couples deciding not to have children is that they can struggle to socialisehang with their peers once most of their peers have childrenafter most of them have children. Most parents prefer to spend more time with other couples who also have childrencouples that have children as well. Moreover, do not have anyone to look after them in their elderliness is another disadvantage. Children are often responsible for taking carethe ones who take care of their parents when they get old because their parents did the same for them when they were young. For instance, the vast majority of peoplethe vast majority of the people who live in care homes have no childrenchild. In conclusion, the main benefits of staying child-free for couples are that they can be more career-oriented and have more free time for themselves, and the main drawbacks are that they could have problems fitting intoproblems about fitting into their friends' social circletheir friends’ group and that they may have no one to take carehaving no one to take care of them when they become older.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response’s strongest feature is its direct coverage of two advantages and two disadvantages, each supported by a clear explanation or example. Its main limitation is weak presentation as one continuous paragraph, compounded by recurring grammatical and collocational errors. The highest-priority improvement is to separate the introduction, advantage, disadvantage, and conclusion sections into logical paragraphs while correcting sentence fragments and verb forms.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response addresses both sides directly and develops each main benefit and drawback with relevant explanation or illustration.
Support the broader claims about social exclusion and care homes with more qualified, convincing reasoning.
Coherence and Cohesion
The sequence of ideas is easy to follow and linking is generally clear, but the complete absence of paragraphing weakens organisation.
Divide the response into distinct introduction, advantages, disadvantages, and conclusion paragraphs to make progression immediately visible.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is sufficiently varied for the topic, although several expressions are awkward or inaccurate.
Replace phrases such as peers’ group, hang with their peers, and in their elderliness with natural academic alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses both simple and complex forms, but fragments and faulty verb patterns occur frequently enough to reduce accuracy.
Correct incomplete or malformed structures such as the opening sentence, taking most of their time, and do not have anyone.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
There is an increasing trend around the world of married couples deciding not to have children. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for couples who decide to do this.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.