Young people committing crimes should be treated the same as adults by the authorities. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
There are reformers today who argue that adults and young people should be treated equally under the law. In my opinion, despite the ostensible fairness of this proposal, it disregards crucial psychological differences.
Those who believe all ages should receive equal treatmentequal treatment, point out that this will create a stronger deterrentengender a greater deterring effect. The main reason whythat all individuals in society are punished is not for justice alone, but as a means to ensure others will not commit similar crimes. Young people learn both at school and in wider societylearn in school and the world generally that their actions will have consequences and that crimes are punishable by imprisonmentpunishable with prison time and other penalties. If these penaltiescensures are weakened, then the likelihood that a young personthe chances a young person will attempt to commit a crime will logically increase, even if the total number of young people engaging in criminal behavior today is lower than at any point in human history.
However, age is a legitimatejust mitigating factor. Adults who commit crimes have had more time to develop socially and intellectually, whilesocially and intellectually while young people might not fully grasp the consequences of their choices for themselves and others. For instance, there have been recent cases where young people were influenced by extremist elements now prevalent on social mediapervasive in social media. Young people are more impressionable in these situations and often lack the confidence and maturity to think for themselves. This vulnerability stems from their incomplete emotional and intellectual developmentextends to their emotional and intellectual development and justifies laws that protect young people from receiving overly harsh sentences.
In conclusion, though there are practical reasons to support equal punishments for all ages, this policyalteration would be unfair to young people. Courts should consider a range of factors before selecting an appropriate punishment.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The essay sustains a clear disagreement and gives a logically balanced explanation of deterrence and young people's reduced maturity, supported by a relevant social-media example. Its main limitation is that a few assertions are insufficiently qualified or slightly tangential, especially the historical crime-rate claim. The highest-priority improvement is to keep every supporting point tightly tied to whether equal legal treatment is justified.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The response directly answers the question, maintains a clear position, and develops both the opposing rationale and its rebuttal substantially.
Replace the unsupported historical crime-rate aside with evidence that more directly tests the claimed deterrent effect.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument is organised into a clear progression, with focused paragraphs and cohesive links that make the contrast easy to follow.
Integrate the final sentence of the deterrence paragraph more closely with its central line of reasoning to avoid a minor digression.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and generally precise, including effective language for legal, psychological, and social distinctions.
Polish occasional unnatural collocations such as 'deterring effect' and 'pervasive in social media' to improve idiomatic precision.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentence forms are handled with strong control, and the few punctuation or preposition errors do not impede communication.
Check comma placement around subject clauses and refine preposition choices to make already sophisticated sentences fully accurate.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Young people committing crimes should be treated the same as adults by the authorities. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.