For schoolchildren, their teachers have more influence on their intelligence and social devel opment than their parents. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Both teachers and parents play a significant role in a child’s upbringing. In this essay, I will discuss why I disagree that teachers are a greater influence on the intelligence and social development of children than their parents.
The first few years of a child’s life are spent almost entirely in the care of their parentsin the company of their parental figures. These years are critical in the social development of a child, as they includecontain their first attempts to communicate with other people to receivein order to receive the care and attention necessary for survival. Most school children start their education between the ages of four and sevenbetween the ages of four to seven years. Therefore, they have already experienced considerable parental influencea considerable amount of parental influence before they even meet their teachersbefore teachers are even introduced to them.
Other significant factors in the intelligence and social development of a child are the socioeconomic circumstances in which they are brought upcircumstances that they are brought up in. The quality of a child’s social life, schooling and health are all socioeconomic factors that heavily influence a child. These factors are a direct consequence of the circumstances brought about by the child’s parents. Better teachers will endow a child with greater intelligence and social skills; however, betterskills, however, better teachers are, on average, found at better schools. A child's attendance at a good schoolThe attendance of a child at a good school is usually the consequence of a decision made by their parents.
I believe that parents are a far greater influence on the intelligence and social development of children than teachers because, firstly, the early developmental years of a child’s life are almost entirely influenced by their parents' carethe company of their parents and, secondly, because the socioeconomic factors of a child’s life are usually a direct consequence of the circumstances that affect their parentsthe factors which effect their parents.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response’s strongest feature is a clear, consistent disagreement supported by a logical account of early parental influence and socioeconomic circumstances. Its main limitation is that the link between those circumstances and children’s intelligence is sometimes asserted rather than fully demonstrated, while some wording is repetitive. The highest-priority improvement is to explain that causal link with a concrete example and reduce repeated terms.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The essay maintains a clear disagreement and develops two relevant reasons, though the second reason’s connection to intelligence is not always fully explained.
Show more explicitly, preferably through a concrete example, how parental socioeconomic circumstances shape a child’s intellectual development.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response follows a clear progression from early parental influence to socioeconomic influence and ends with a concise restatement of the position.
Improve the internal flow of the second body paragraph by making each step in the cause-and-effect chain more explicit.
Lexical Resource
The essay demonstrates a good range of topic-appropriate vocabulary, but repeated words such as child, influence, factors, and consequence reduce flexibility.
Vary repeated key terms carefully and replace awkward choices such as endow a child with greater intelligence with more natural academic phrasing.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A variety of complex sentences is handled with generally good control, although a few punctuation and form errors remain noticeable.
Correct structures such as between four and seven, avoid joining independent clauses with a comma before however, and distinguish affect from effect.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
For schoolchildren, their teachers have more influence on their intelligence and social devel opment than their parents. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.