IELTS 6 Writing Model Essay (Free sample)

Test 4 Task 1 Question

The charts below give information about USA marriage and divorce rates between 1970 and 2000, and the marital status of adult Americans in two of the years.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

Test 4 Task 1 Model Essay by an Expert

The first graph displays the number of marriages and divorces in America between 1970 and 2000. The second compares the marital statuses of Americans in 1970 and in 2000. Between 1970 and 2000, rates of marriage remained consistently significantly higher than divorce rates. This concurs with the second graph, which shows that being married was by far the most common marital status amongst adult Americans in both 1970 and 2000, at 70% and 60% respectively. Whilst marriage rates remained at 2.5 million between 1970 and 1980, there was then a steady decline in the number of marriages, with 2 million in the year 2000. This is consistent with the second graph, which shows that a lower percentage of American adults were married in 2000 than in 1970.

Divorce rates reached a peak of 1.4 million in 1980, before declining back to the 1970 rate of 1 million in 2000. In 1970, being divorced was the least common marital status. In 2000, however, being widowed was slightly less common than being divorced, with a percentage difference of roughly 3%.

(178 words)

IELTS 6 Writing Model Essay (Free sample)

Test 2 Task 1 Question

The table below gives information about changes in modes of travel in England between 1985 and 2000. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons when relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

Test 2 Task 1 Model Essay by an Expert

The table compares how many miles an average English person travelled by different modes of transport in the years 1985 and 2000. In total, the average person travelled around 1,700 more miles in 2000 than in 1985. The mode of transport with the greatest difference between the two years is the car, which covered 1,607 more miles per year in 2000 than in 1985. In both years, however, the car was the mode of transport by which the average person travelled the furthest. In 1985, taxi was the mode of transport by which the average person travelled the smallest distance; in 2000, it was the bicycle, by a very small margin compared to the also unpopular taxi.

In the year 2000, people travelled less far by foot, by bike and significantly less by local bus than in 1985. Since these are modes of transport usually used to cover small distances, this is consistent with the overall trend of people travelling a further total distance on average in the year 2000. Concurrently, distances travelled by long distance bus and train increased significantly from the year 1985 to 2000.

(187 words)

IELTS  6 Writing Model Essay (Free sample)

Test 1 Task 2 Question

Test 1 Task 2 Model Essay by an Expert Two

In today’s consumerist society, sales of popular goods are through the roof. Arguably, powerful advertising has influenced this trend of buying unnecessary items. However, the idea of what is a ‘real need’ is very dependent on context.

Advertising is big business, and is now designed to be highly influential on consumers. Advertising agencies employ psychologists to come up with increasingly creative and powerful ways to persuade the public that certain products will make them happier, healthier, even better looking. One technique that advertisers use is to suggest that certain products or brands would make you belong to an exclusive group. This is a powerful psychological drive, and can make consumers buy particular products or brands that they may not truly need.

Indeed, many popular consumer goods are arguably completely unnecessary, suggesting that it is advertising that prompts people to buy them. For example, most people update their smart-phones every couple of years. Is this really necessary? More likely, it is a result of powerful advertising suggesting that it is uncool and old-fashioned to have anything other than the latest model of their branded product.

On the other hand, though, what can be defined as the ‘real needs’ of a society is very dependent on the context. Do we really need virtual maps in our pockets, to direct us whenever we are lost? Do we even need ovens and hobs, when an open fire would cook our food? Technically no, but both products are extremely useful. Thus, it is easy to push the idea of a society’s ‘real needs’ too far. The ‘needs’ of a society change and develop along with the technology it uses.

Advertising is undoubtedly a powerful force in modern society. However, it is worth remembering that often, high sales of consumer goods, whilst prompted by advertising, may be a reflection of high-quality, convenient products that people do actually need in the modern world.

(316 words)

IELTS  6 Writing Model Essay (Free sample)

Test 1 Task 2 Question

Test 1 Task 2 Model Essay by an Expert One

Everyone complains about the amount of advertising around. You cannot go far without seeing some form of advertising, and studies suggest that the average person sees hundreds of advertising messages each day. With all these images and messages, is it any surprise that society buys things it does not need? In this essay I will argue that it is because of advertising that we consume too much, and that the power the advertisers have is used irresponsibly.

The sale of cigarettes is a case in point. With clever branding strategies and desirable, attractive images, advertisers for decades have succeeded in creating a need that did not exist beforehand. It is very clear that consuming tobacco is not a need. The power of advertising, however, is such that it is able to make a dangerous, unhealthy product into a necessity for many people.

Many will say in opposition that though advertising promotes competition between companies it does not create needs in consumers. In this light, advertising appears to be a positive force in society because it allows consumers to be informed about their choices and for companies to compete to provide the best quality goods and services. But this simply does not reflect the facts. The most heavily advertised products on children’s television, for instance, are for snacks. It is virtually impossible to turn on a television set and not see advertising for unhealthy food products. The amount of time these advertisements take up is not simply to promote competition or inform consumers. It is clear that advertising is really required when goods are not necessary, in order to create demand for them.

The way that advertisers achieve high sales is often by convincing people of a need, and then selling products to correspond. For instance, products for tooth whitening have only been around for a couple of decades. Of course, it is not that everyone in the past had terrible teeth. Rather, the need for tooth-whitening products was invented by advertising that told people to be ashamed of the way they looked. People became convinced of a new need. Today many cosmetic products, especially for women, are sold because advertisers create a demand for them through shame. In this way, advertising alters the true needs of society.

In conclusion, advertising often works to sell goods that are evidently not necessary. Moreover, advertising tries to alter the needs of a society. It is able to create needs where they did not exist before, often using people’s sense of shame to sell new products. So much of what we consume we do not need, but advertising even makes it difficult to know what is a need and what is not.

(448 words)