Nelson’s essay
Nowadays the way many people interact with each other has changed because of technology. In what ways has technology affected the types of relationships people make? Has this become a positive or negative development?
Technology devices such as mobile phones and computers have transformed the way people communicate with one other in this modern world. People are able to keep in touch with their family and friends across the globe. While this technology has also negative effects on relationships, overall the advantage outweigh the drawback.
Social technology has changed the way information is passed on. This is because, it has made it easier and efficient for people to communicate with their relatives instantly and maintain their relationships throughout life despite the distance involved. Moreover, it has made it accessible for people to be updated about word’s current affairs, and also to be aware about things which are trending. For example, by using a mobile application call Facebook people can check on their relatives and friends,and also be informed about current news.
Technology devices have greatly impacted our lives in both negative and positive ways. Because of it, people who are born deaf can easily learn how to write and speak with it. And also it can guide people blind people making it easier for them to travel on their own. Additionally, it has made it possible for scientist to predict climate pattern hence making people prepared and to avoid adverse climates such as floods and droughts. For instance, deaf people are able nowadays to drive cars which has been made possible by use of technology devices. Therefore, technology advancement has become a positive breakthrough.
To conclude, the way people interact has been really transformed by invention of technology. It has enabled people to maintain their relationships with their friends and loved ones. The advantage of invention of technology outweigh the disadvantage.
Task Response
Task response is all about how well you do at giving a strong answer to the question. This essay question is a ‘two question’ type question. These are a bit rarer than some other question types, but you still need to be able to answer them. Nelson has done a good job because he’s answered both of these questions.
However, the body paragraphs in this essay aren’t very specific. We can see this looking at the two topic sentences:
Social technology has changed the way information is passed on.
Technology devices have greatly impacted our lives in both negative and positive ways.
These don’t have a very strong or specific idea, which is what you would want to get a higher band score. As a result, I can’t give this essay a higher score than a six.
Coherence and Cohesion
This part of your IELTS grade is about how well you paragraph and maintain ‘flow’ in your essays. This essay organises its paragraphs correctly and it refers to its body paragraphs in the introduction and conclusion.
Cohesive devices are short phrases we add to the beginning of sentences to show their relationship to what came before. They are a big part of your coherence and cohesion score. This essay has some good cohesive devices like:
- Moreover
- Additionally
- For instance
However, we can also see some issues with cohesive devices. “This is because,” can’t be used as a cohesive device. ‘Because of this’ is okay but a little informal for the IELTS. I would recommend “For this reason,” as an alternative.
Additionally, it has made it possible for scientist to predict climate pattern hence making people prepared and to avoid adverse climates such as floods and droughts. For instance, deaf people are able nowadays to drive cars which has been made possible by use of technology devices.
Although I said above that ‘For instance’ is a good cohesive device, it doesn’t quite work here because devices that help deaf people drive aren’t an example of avoiding adverse climates.
Overall, I’d give this essay a band six for these reasons and because the body paragraphs don’t have as clear a central idea as they could do.
Lexical Resource
Lexical resource is all about how you use words in your essay. For this essay, I’d like to focus on collocation. This means you are using words that fit together well. In the essay, there are some good examples of collocation:
- Have greatly impacted our lives
- People are able to keep in touch with their family and friends across the globe
- Check on their relatives
These are all phrases that commonly go together. We can also see some examples of words that don’t go together well.
- Both negative and positive ways
- It is far more common to say ‘positive and negative’ than ‘negative and positive’.
- Technology devices/technology advancement
- These should be ‘technological’.
- Mobile application
- I’m not sure if this would be marked down, but it’s far more common to hear just ‘application’ these days.
I think lexical resource is the strongest section of this essay and I would give it a band six or seven. There are quite a few spelling mistakes that, with the collocation errors, make it harder to get anything higher.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
In terms of how well this essay uses grammar, the biggest problem is that too many of the complex sentences are made with ‘and’. This is one of the less complex types of complex sentence and you need to add multiple types of complexity to score higher here. There are also a few grammatical mistakes which hurt this score.
- People can check on their relatives and friends, and also be informed about current news.
- There are a few things to change in this sentence. First, there is no space between ‘friends’ and ‘and’. Second, we only use a comma with ‘and’ when it joins two independent clauses. To check if something is an independent clause, we need to look at if it makes sense on its own. ‘also be informed about current news’ doesn’t make any sense as a sentence, so it can’t be an independent clause. Finally, ‘relatives and friends’ is usually ‘friends and relatives’ so we’d score more for lexical resource with it that way round. This sentence ends up as ‘People can check on their friends and relatives and also stay informed about current news.’
- Additionally, it has made it possible for scientist to predict climate pattern hence making people prepared and to avoid adverse climates such as floods and droughts.
- I would write this as ‘Additionally, it has made it possible for scientists to predict climate patterns, which can help prepare people to avoid adverse climates such as floods and droughts.’ so I could use an appositve and show off some more complex grammar. I’ve also made ‘scientist’ plural and gotten rid of ‘hence’.
I would give this a band six for grammatical range and accuracy. I think there isn’t enough complex grammar to push this over the edge to get a band seven.
Overall feedback
Overall this essay would get:
- Task response: 6
- Coherence and Cohesion: 6
- Lexical Resource: 6/7
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy: 6
- Overall band: 6
However, what I think is most interesting is how easy it would be to get this essay to a band seven. The problems with task response could be fixed quickly by learning about good IELTS structure. The lexical resource and grammar sections need some IELTS focused instruction and a bit of feedback to push them over the edge.
Thanks so much to Nelson for submitting this essay. If you want to get some help with your IELTS writing, why not sign up for our Better IELTS Writing in a Week course or tutoring with Practical IELTS.
