Nowadays, there is a trend that reports of media focus on problems and emergencies rather than positive development. Some people think it is harmful to individuals and to society. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
The question of whether stories about emergencies or positive developments should be featuredemergencies or positive stories should be featured on the news have been a recent topic of debate. Many believe we should try to focus on negative issues and eventsissues and situations of negative stories, whilst others believe that constant exposure to negative news contentdarker content on the news would cause people to stop following the news altogetherturn away from news altogether. Personally, I believe that the news should maintain a balance of both positive and negative stories.
On the one hand, depressing or upsetting news might turn people away from following the news entirelywatching them entirely, leading to a large numbercontingent of people being under-informed. This is something cable news and traditional print media have failed to solve, as they choose to useprefer to maintain a pessimistic, sensationalist style of reporting in order to increase revenue. As a result, there has also been a recent sharp increase in the numberincrease in, for example, the number of American youths who get their news from comedy news programmesget their news through comedic news shows, inas an effort to offset the gravity of the situations we facesituations we are faced with every day.
On the other hand, it can be argued that ignoringfocusing on ignoring negative issues will not make them go away, and informing peopleinforming the people of their existence might lead to better solutions. Countries and societies must continually adaptconstantly need to change to adapt to pressing problems, and only by informing theirits citizens and involving them in the decision making process can solutions be found. For example, the prospect of a climate catastrophe is gloomy; however,is gloomy, however, if there was no coverage on it, there might not have beenit could be judged that there would not have been as many environmental movements as there are today.
In conclusion, I argue that news outlets have a delicate balance to strike - they must achieve their goal of remaining objective and informativeremaining objectively informative, whilst also presenting an image of the world that does not negatively affect their viewership.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response's strongest feature is its balanced, clearly organised argument that explains both the disengaging effect of relentlessly negative news and the public value of reporting serious problems. Its main limitation is that the position only indirectly answers the extent-of-agreement wording, while some supporting claims are asserted rather than fully demonstrated. The priority is to state the degree of agreement explicitly and connect each example more precisely to harm for individuals or society.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear nuanced position is maintained and both sides are developed with relevant reasoning and examples, though the precise extent of agreement remains somewhat implicit.
State explicitly how far you agree that the reporting trend is harmful and make every example demonstrate that specific claim.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically through a clear introduction, two focused body paragraphs, and a consistent conclusion, with generally effective cohesive devices.
Strengthen the links between individual claims within each body paragraph so that the examples follow more directly from the preceding reasoning.
Lexical Resource
A broad and generally precise vocabulary supports the argument, including effective language for media practices and social consequences, despite several awkward collocations.
Refine combinations such as “situations of negative stories,” “focusing on ignoring,” and “coverage on it” to achieve more natural precision.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A varied range of complex structures is used successfully and meaning remains clear, although several agreement, pronoun-reference, and punctuation errors occur.
Proofread complex sentences for subject-verb agreement, consistent pronoun reference, and correct punctuation around linking adverbs such as “however.”
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Nowadays, there is a trend that reports of media focus on problems and emergencies rather than positive development. Some people think it is harmful to individuals and to society. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.