Some people do not go directly to college but travel or work for a short time. Do you think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?
Sample Response
While some people prefer to enter university directlygo straight to university after graduating from high school, others choose to take a gap year toin order to travel or work. In my viewFrom my point of view, the advantages of taking a gap year after high schooltaking some time off after leaving high school far outweigh any disadvantages that this trend may bring.
On the one hand, pursuing tertiary education immediately after finishing high school does have some disadvantages. Firstly, some people have a clear career pathsome people know exactly what career path they wish to follow and are highly motivated to take the necessary stepsundertake the necessary steps needed to achieve their dreams. Taking a gap year could be a waste of time and moneyserve as a waste of time and money for such people and maysuch people, and may even cause some young people to lose sight of their originalprevious goals. Secondly, some young people may find earning moneyearning money while working to be much more appealing than returning to educationgoing back to study. This could deter them from pursuingdetract them from wanting to pursue further education, which could disadvantage them in the long runwhich could have significant disadvantages in the long run.
On the other hand, taking time away from formal studytaking time off from studying to travel or work has manycountless benefits for young people. Although some high school graduates know exactly what they want to do in life, I believe that most young people have little idea of their future plansvery little idea. This is largely due to the fact that young people today often lead sheltered liveskids these days live very sheltered lives, and do not know much about how the ‘real world’ functionsactually functions. Taking a gap year will allowis going to allow them to get some real-life experience andreal-life experience, and broaden their understanding ofbroaden their horizons about their possible future career. Furthermore, kids these days are put through twelve years of schooling, which can be exhaustingschooling which can be exhausting for many. Taking a break to travel or work will help to prepare them for further education.
In conclusion, I believe that taking time off to travel or work before attending university would be highly beneficial to most young people today.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response maintains a clear view that the benefits of a gap year predominate and supports both sides with relevant, logically ordered ideas. Its main limitation is uneven precision: the disadvantage paragraph opens with a misleading topic sentence, while several phrases are informal or awkwardly collocated. The highest-priority improvement is to frame each paragraph around the gap year's actual advantages or disadvantages and express those comparisons more precisely.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The essay answers the comparative question clearly and develops relevant disadvantages and benefits while sustaining its position.
Explain more explicitly why the stated benefits outweigh the risks, especially the brief point about recovering from years of schooling.
Coherence and Cohesion
The four-paragraph structure and progression are clear, although the first body paragraph's opening misidentifies the disadvantages being discussed.
Rewrite that topic sentence to announce the disadvantages of taking a gap year and align it directly with the paragraph's supporting ideas.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary has good range, but awkward collocations and informal repetition reduce precision in places.
Replace phrases such as serve as a waste, detract them, and kids these days with accurate, suitably formal alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A broad range of complex sentences is produced with strong control, and the few minor lapses do not impede meaning.
Tighten coordination and punctuation in longer sentences so each relationship between clauses is completely precise.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people do not go directly to college but travel or work for a short time. Do you think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.