Some people believe the aim of university education is to help graduates get better jobs. Others believe there are much wider benefits of university education for both individuals and society. Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Sample Response
A group of people think that the main purpose of university studies is to help their students gethelp their students in getting a a better careerbetter career. Others disagree with the opinion, as they believe that undergraduate studies providegive more benefits for their graduates besides better jobs. The following essay will discuss both viewsthe both views in detaildetails. On the one hand, many people believe that the main goal of college studies is to getthe main goal of college studies to get a better job. This thought has been generally accepted by the public, as many companies are only hiring people who have obtained certain degrees. For example, it is common that multinational oil companies such as Shell, Chevron or Caltex will only recruit new staffstaffs who have obtained their bachelor degree, while those who have no degrees will only be hired as general labourerslabours in small factories. As a consequence, many university students only focus on their academic studies and do not participate in any extracurricular activities, as they believe that those programs are not important. On the other hand, another group of people think that university studies give wider benefits to their students besides the career purpose. Firstly, university studies give the students a chance to enhance their talents in other fields, besides their academic studiesbeside their academy studies. For instanceinstances, it is common that universities are arranging sports activities such as basketball or football. Many students have experienced the advantage of this program, which has helped them in becoming professional athletes such as Michael Jordan or Grant Hill. Secondly, universities also provide social clubs such as a speech or a leadership club which are useful for the students. Students who join these clubs will experience a lot of benefits as they learn how to interact with other people, deliver attractive presentations and how to lead an organisation. Therefore many campuses are organising and arranging these extracurricular activities and persuading their students to get involvedinvolve with one of the clubs. In my opinion, although it is undeniable that the main aim of studying in university is to get a better career, I do believe that other activities that are provided by the campusactivities that provided by the campus are also beneficial for the students. And I think that students should have a proportionate time between academic study, extracurricular activities and social life.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response presents a clear opinion and supports both the employment-focused and broader personal-benefit views with relevant examples. Its main weakness is that benefits to society remain largely implicit, while the single long paragraph also makes the argument harder to navigate. Prioritise developing one or two explicit social benefits, then organise the discussion into distinct paragraphs so each part of the task is fully and clearly addressed.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The essay discusses employment benefits and wider personal benefits, with a clear opinion, but the benefits for society are only implied and not fully developed.
Add explicit social benefits such as civic participation, innovation, or community leadership to fully answer both individuals and society.
Coherence and Cohesion
The answer progresses logically through both views, but all ideas are compressed into one long paragraph, which reduces clarity.
Separate the essay into introduction, job-focused view, wider-benefits view, and conclusion.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is adequate for education and employment, but there are several inaccurate word choices and collocations.
Use natural academic phrases such as gain a better career, bachelor's degree, manual labour, and get involved in clubs.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Grammar is generally understandable but contains frequent errors with articles, plurals, verb patterns, and relative clauses.
Edit noun phrases for countability and use that are provided or provided by instead of that provided.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people believe the aim of university education is to help graduates get better jobs. Others believe there are much wider benefits of university education for both individuals and society. Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.