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2020

IELTS Essay, topic: Some people believe that the problem of illegal drugs can be solved by legalising all drugs (agree/disagree)

This is a model response to a Writing Task 2 topic from High Scorer’s Choice IELTS Practice Tests book series (reprinted with permission). This answer is likely to score IELTS Band 9.

Set 3 General Training book, Practice Test 12

Writing Task 2

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

Some people believe that the problem of illegal drugs can be solved by legalising all drugs. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience.

You should write at least 250 words.

Answer

Illegal drugs have become a worldwide problem in modern day society. The trading of drugs is widespread in nearly all countries and the number of people consuming drugs worldwide is high. It has been suggested simply to legalise all recreational drugs to solve the problems associated with them. I personally agree partially with this proposal, because I can see many advantages, yet also many disadvantages.

One positive aspect of legalising these drugs would be that the number of criminal activities committed to obtain them would decrease. Fewer people would therefore be imprisoned and have a criminal history that prevents them from progressing in life. Additionally, essential police resources would be freed up and devoted to other areas. Finally, high taxes could be imposed on the legal product, allowing governments to have better resources to improve the infrastructure of their countries.

Although legalising all illegal drugs could result in several positive effects, there are many negative effects that could be possible. As a result of the legalisation, I personally believe that it would become acceptable to use drugs and people would no longer pay attention to the damage that drugs cause. Schools might no longer educate teenagers and adolescents about the negative effects drugs have on people, resulting in more teenagers experimenting with them, as they would believe that this is a normal aspect of life. This would result in a higher number of drug addicts and potentially in more deaths, because it would be easier to obtain a large amount of illegal drugs and therefore the chances of overdosing would also increase.

In conclusion, I partially agree with the proposed action. Nonetheless, I think that an age restriction should be placed on drug use, as teenagers and adolescents could easily become addicted if all illegal drugs are legalised. This group of people is highly at risk of becoming addicted and potentially dying as a result of drug use and therefore should only be allowed to consume drugs after reaching a certain age.

Go here for more IELTS Band 9 Essays

How to go from Band 6 to Band 7 in the IELTS Speaking Test

The most frequently asked questions we get from people preparing for the IELTS Speaking test are

1. What am I likely to get for Speaking in the real test?

and

2. How can I score higher?

And fortunately, we have the answers!

In today’s video Hugo, a student from Taiwan and a native Chinese speaker, is taking our interactive IELTS Speaking test.

You will see the examiner ask questions and Hugo answer them, and you can learn from that, but wait – it gets better. After Hugo finishes his Speaking test, Adam (our Speaking examiner) shows his estimated Speaking score and explains why that is what Hugo would get in IELTS. And here comes the best part – Adam explains what Hugo needs to start doing to go from Band 6 to Band 7.

If you missed last week’s video, let us introduce Adam. Adam was an active IELTS Speaking examiner for 10 years and has an enormous amount of experience in assessing test takers’ Speaking ability. His feedback gives you a very rare opportunity to see how you are being assessed and scored in IELTS.

When you understand what your problems are and what you need to fix to get a higher score, it has an amazing effect on your exam preparation. It gives you a clear goal to work towards, and you don’t have to guess anymore!

The breakdown of Hugo’s score by the 4 IELTS criteria (Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation) is shown at the end of the video, and also in his evaluation report here.

The questions are shown on the screen while Hugo answers them. You will see that every question has a number (Q1, Q2, etc) and the examiner in his evaluation report is referring to Hugo’s little mistakes in every question. It’s great to watch the entire video first, including Adam’s commentary where he talks about Hugo’s performance and score, and then go back to the specific questions as you read the evaluation report. It will help you understand what exactly the examiner means when he says something like

Q7 – ‘it brings me surprise’ – is not quite accurate, try ‘it always surprises me’ or ‘there is always something surprising to experience each time’

 

Download Hugo’s speaking evaluation report here.

Try and answer the same questions in your own words, and perhaps even record yourself. It will provide an opportunity to listen to your pronunciation and see what needs work.

If you’d like to get your Speaking evaluated just like Hugo did, you can – go here to learn how.