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December 2008

IELTS essay, topic: Should children be working?

In many countries children are engaged in some kind of paid work. Some people regard this as completely wrong, while others consider it to be a valuable work experience, which is important for learning and taking responsibility. What is your opinion on this?

In the Third World, children are usually sent to factories for laborious work. Many people believe that it is merely exploitation, while others think it is a good opportunity for them to life experience. In any case, children have their right to live and study in peaceful conditions. Therefore, using them as workforce is considered an unacceptable action.

First of all, children are not workers. They have just learned about the vast world and do not have any experience or concept of working. Since these innocent children are naive and , they can be easily cheated and exploited. There are many examples of this in poor nations. Because using children is cheap and to control, many enterprises hire them and don’t pay them much. Although the government in these countries has tried its best, this kind of taking advantage of children cannot be eliminated.

Moreover, children do not need such thing as ‘valuable work experience’ that is supposedly ‘important for learning and taking responsibility’. The brief responsibility of children is learning. They are not old enough to understand what working experiences are. Nevertheless, they can help parents do chores or housework. This will be a much better way for them to become more responsible for . In addition, childhood is one of the most remarkable memories and must not be taken away by forcing them to work.

In conclusion, since all children are the great concern of parent and society, they should be allowed to enjoy life and rather than to work. Hence, one must ponder what view is actually appropriate for the sake of the children.

This is a good essay. It covers the task, the paragraphs are coherent, the sentences are well-structured and the vocabulary is adequate. However a little structural change in the paragraphs is required – you should first make the point (such as “Some say that children should learn about earning money” and then oppose to it “However, children can not be compared to adult workers”). Also, there were some more inaccuracies (see comments underlined in blue). Overall, this looks like a Band 6.5 essay.

Click here to see more IELTS essays of band 6

gain
inexperienced
they are easy
for the sake of their family
be educated
be encouraged

IELTS Writing tips from Band 7.5 achiever

In this post our November’s winner, IELTS Band 7.5 achiever William shares his secrets to success in Writing. You can read his tips for Listening and Speaking test here.

Writing test

For the writing section, one way to brush up your writing skills is to write more essays. You should write as many DIFFERENT types of essays as you can, so that you would be armed with more ideas for a variety of topics in your head before you turn up to the IELTS test.

For example, you might want to write essays that are related to Economics, Law, Physics, Education, Sociology, Politics, Management, and so forth. The following list, which is by no means exhaustive, shows possible essay titles that you might wish to use:

Economics: Discuss the potential economic consequences of an economic recession.

Law: Many people around the world are not in favor of abortion. Discuss, with reasons, whether or not the government should introduce a law prohibiting abortion.

Physics: Isaac Newton discovered gravity. Discuss the ways that the work of Isaac Newton on the discovery of gravity has contributed to our society.

Education: It is argued that parents should send their children to boarding schools so that young children can learn to live independently. Do you agree? Support your arguments with reasons.

Sociology: The society has different expectations on men and women. For example, men should be strong and brave and women should be caring and conscientious. What personal characteristics and social values do you think the “perfect male model” and the “perfect female model” should have?

Politics: “A right-winged government that supports free market philosophies is better than a left-winged government that favors socialist policies.” Do you agree?

Management: How should a company’s managing director manage its employees? Discuss various methods that a managing director can employ to manage the company’s staff.

It is also important that you try to write your essays NOT by typing them out on a computer, but by writing them on pieces of paper with a pencil or a pen. You should know that in the IELTS test you must write your essays manually by hand so it is important that you get used to the format of the real IELTS test. Furthermore, after you have done your essays, make sure you give them to a native English speaker to mark them so that he or she can give you advice on how to improve your English.

General tips

In order to increase your range of vocabulary, you can try taking a piece of paper and making a list of the words that you are not familiar with or that are unusual, and then writing the corresponding definitions next to each word. Make sure you learn the spelling of those words and their meanings regularly.

You should also try to communicate (be it speaking, listening or writing) as much as possible in English in your everyday life. Try thinking in the English language as well. In that way, you would be able to build up your confidence before the IELTS test.