IELTS Essays – Band 9

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 2 Academic book, Practice Test 7

Writing Task 2

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

One of the major problems that faces today’s governments is creating enough satisfactory housing for their increasing populations whilst still trying to protect the environment.

How can this be achieved? Discuss and give your opinion.

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

You should write at least 250 words.

Answer

In a world with an ever-growing population, providing housing is one of the crucial tasks of all governments. At the same time, however, the environment has to be protected from too much destruction and deforestation. Different solutions have been created to solve these problems. One significant solution could be increasing the height of buildings.

When looking at the skyline of metropolitan cities, skyscrapers are becoming increasingly visible. The reason for this is simple: housing has to be provided, while the environment should suffer the least amount possible. Decreasing the building footprints of houses and therefore the destruction of environment, while increasing the height, is an effective solution in overcoming this dilemma. This resolution also has its faults though, as increasing height also means that sunlight reaching the streets will decrease and that housing will be built more densely in order to save space.

Another possible solution is to increase building costs to pressure the population into living in smaller areas, which would save space. As this impacts members of the community unevenly depending on their wealth, this would encourage unequal living standards and conflicts as a result of this. Therefore, this is not a plausible solution to the problem.

In my opinion, finding the perfect way to minimise environmental damage while increasing housing is a problem to which there is no simple solution. Many governments are currently relying on height to solve the problem, but this is not attractive to many people. Any solution chosen should be one that causes the fewest problems.

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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 2 Academic book, Practice Test 6

Writing Task 2

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

The world today is a safer place than it was a hundred years ago, and governments should stop spending large amounts of money on their armed forces.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

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

You should write at least 250 words.

Answer

It is now some time since the whole world was involved in one war. The world nowadays is no comparison to the past, when millions of soldiers were lost on the battlefield. As the world today is significantly safer than previously, it can be argued that governments should stop spending large amounts of money on their military forces.

The last World War dates back nearly seventy years and, since 1945, no conflict has taken place in western countries. Thus, people have suggested that spending money on necessities within society instead of armed forces is more useful. However, this is very difficult, as even though no significant conflict has taken place in western countries, they are still involved in the conflicts of other countries. For example, the US contribution in the Iraqi war has only recently ended. For such involvement of military forces in foreign lands, countries still need to have strong armed forces, in case they are needed.

In some countries like the UK, the military is already significantly weaker than it has been in the past. However, historically, a hundred years is not that long and because no conflict has happened recently, this does not mean that there will be no conflict in the future. At the outbreak of World War Two, the UK was seriously under-prepared, as it had been thought that the horrors of World War One had convinced everyone of the uselessness of war.

In conclusion, certain armed forces are necessary for major countries even though the world is safer than a hundred years ago. They might need to intervene in conflicts in other countries and world peace is by no means assured for the future.

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