Many people say that smoking should be banned while others say it is not a good idea. What is your opinion on this? Use your own experience
Sample Response
Banning smoking is a controversial issue becauseas many people strongly support athis ban while others disagree with it. It has been around for centuries and in many countries, public smoking is prohibitedpublic smoking is prohibited and against the law while it is permittedopen in many other countries. There are debatediscussions and arguments about whether smoking should be banned completely or not. First of all, smoking is detrimental to health. It causes lung cancer which ultimately leads to death. It might take a long time to show symptoms but it always happens. Secondly, it is a waste of money as smokers spend a lot of money on cigaretteson the cigarette. Addiction to smoking leads to addiction to marijuana, yaba, etc.yaba etc. Eventually, addicted people get involved in different types of crimes. They start obtainingcollecting money by stealing, lying and robbing and the severity of the crime keeps on increasing. Moreover, smoking not only harmsharm the smoker but also the people around the smokerpeople around them. Recent studies on smoking suggest that passive smoking is as harmful as active smoking. On the contrary, the tobacco industry is a source of substantial tax revenuethe source of huge tax for the government. The government makesGovernment makes the best utilization of the tax money by building schools, mosques, repairingoverhaul streets etc. Thousands of people work in cigarette-related industries and this creates huge job opportunities. If smoking is banned completely, these people will become unemployed. Another vague benefit of smoking is that smokers believe smoking refreshes their minds and relieves them from tension and stress, though it has not been scientifically proved. Some people think that banning smoking is like imposing a restrictionimposing restriction on people's freedom and they completely oppose the idea of imposing restrictions on smoking. From this discussionUp to this point of view, we see that there are opinions for and against the banning of smoking. I believe the governmentI believe, the government should think rationally and wisely before they make any decision about prohibiting smoking. Personally, I believe that public smoking should be prohibited and any violation of this rule should be penalized but a complete ban on smoking should be made slowly and with proper planning.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response presents a clear, qualified opinion and explores substantial arguments on both sides, with a logical movement from health harms to economic and freedom concerns. The strongest limitation is presentation: the entire essay is one paragraph, so major stages of the argument are insufficiently separated, while some claims are overgeneralised. Divide the discussion into purposeful paragraphs and support the central claims more cautiously.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
A clear qualified position is maintained and both sides are developed, but some arguments are exaggerated and the requested experiential support is absent.
Use a credible personal or observed example and avoid unsupported causal claims linking smoking directly to wider addiction and crime.
Coherence and Cohesion
The sequence of opposing arguments and the final position is easy to follow, but the single-paragraph format weakens organisation substantially.
Separate the introduction, reasons for a ban, counterarguments and conclusion into distinct paragraphs with clear central topics.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a sufficiently wide range of topic vocabulary, although several collocations and expressions are awkward or imprecise.
Prefer natural phrases such as generates substantial tax revenue, repairs roads and restricts individual freedom.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex sentence forms is used with generally good control, and the remaining agreement and article errors rarely hinder meaning.
Edit for subject-verb agreement, article use and comma placement in clauses containing reporting or opinion verbs.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Many people say that smoking should be banned while others say it is not a good idea. What is your opinion on this? Use your own experience
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.