Television has had a significant influence on the culture of many societies. To what extent would you say that television has positively or negatively affected the cultural development of society?
Sample Response
It is said that television has a great power to influence people's mindsmind. To some extent, I do agree with this statement. The main drawbackcon of television is that it has created a status-driven culturecreated the status system in our society. Today, companies are hiring celebrities to promotehiring celebrities for promoting their products. Advertising products in a glamorous way will create greed in the hearts of people who cannot affordthose people who can't afford those expensive productsthat expensive product. For example, I have a friend who watches movies a lot. He was fascinated byvery much fascinated with the lifestyle currently shownlifestyle which is nowadays showing on television. He does not have enough money to live that lifestyle so he starts practising illegal ways of achieving that lifestyle. He began committing robberiesHe started the robbery. Today, people are frustrated and depressed because they are notfrustrated and depressed for not being able to livespend a luxurious life. Everyone is working hard to earn a lot of money and consequently have to sacrificefor which they have to sacrifice their social and personal life. On the other hand, if we look at the positive aspect of this issue, we can observe that television is also a source of information. By watching informative channels, viewers can broaden their knowledgeone can enhance his knowledge. One can improve his language by watching a particular language channel. For example, myMy friend has improved his English listening skillslistening skills of English by watching English movies and dramas. Moreover, I have a friend who is very much fond of taking dowry. He stated that he will marry a girl only who will give him a lot of dowries but by watching different shows which teaches him that taking dowry is one of the most horrible things one can do, he started neglecting the idea to take dowry. All in all, everything has its own advantages and disadvantages. It totally depends on a person to what to learn from something. On the one hand, television is a source of knowledge for peopleknowledge for those people who want to learn something in their life and on the other hand television is the most horrible thing for those who want to remain uneducated for their entire life.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response considers both harmful and beneficial influences of television and provides several concrete examples, with the positive discussion of education and language learning offering useful balance. Its main limitation is that it never establishes a clear overall judgement about whether cultural development has been affected more positively or negatively, and much of the discussion concerns individual behaviour rather than culture. State a consistent comparative position and develop fewer, more culturally focused examples.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
Relevant positive and negative effects are discussed, but the overall position remains unclear and several examples address personal conduct more than cultural development.
Decide whether the cultural impact is predominantly positive or negative, then support that judgement with examples about shared values, customs, or social attitudes.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response moves recognisably from negative effects to positive effects and a conclusion, but the single paragraph and repetitive examples weaken progression.
Use separate paragraphs for the negative case, positive case, and comparative conclusion, with one central claim in each.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is adequate for the topic, but frequent inaccurate collocations such as status system, started the robbery, and neglecting the idea reduce precision.
Use natural expressions such as status-conscious culture, turned to theft, and abandoned the idea, and avoid repeating horrible and lifestyle.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Meaning is usually clear, but tense, agreement, article, pronoun, and clause errors are frequent across both simple and complex sentences.
Keep narrative examples consistently in the past tense and check every relative clause and subject-verb agreement before finalising the essay.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Television has had a significant influence on the culture of many societies. To what extent would you say that television has positively or negatively affected the cultural development of society?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.