in this video I'm going to assess an IELTS essay which was written in response
to this question you should spend about 40 minutes on this task write about the
following topic many museums charge for admission while others are free do you
think the advantages of charging people for admission to museums outweigh the
disadvantages give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples
from your own knowledge or experience write at least 250 words and here is the
answer to the question museums are unique places where you get
to experience the history from past to the latest technology however admission
is required when entering museums are popular places to go to on a weekends
with family or friends admissions are one of the funds which keeps the museum
running and also to maintain its exhibits without admission museums would
be dirty poorly maintained and likely impossible to operate unless funded from
government or charity however admissions are one thing which
may keep the customer from entering usually we have to pay around $30 for
admissions children or family which doesn't earn much simply cannot afford
such amount they will go to museum which is free or even not go and experience
the greatness of the museum which i think is horrible because it should be
open for everyone I think having an admission is a disadvantage since
museums should be open for everyone but admissions are essential for running the
museums so I think it is very important to come up with a plan so that museums
could be operated but also be admission free such as government funding or doing
a charity Auckland museum is one great example it is
one of the biggest museums in New Zealand but it is also free of admission
since it's government-funded so overall I think it's quite a good
response to the task it's got in paragraph two it talks about the
advantages of admissions charges here the disadvantages of admissions charges
here the opinion is clearly stated but there's not an awful lot of signposting
language cohesive devices to tell me what's about to be written so in
paragraph two I don't know that the writer was going to write about the
advantages of admissions charges until they actually get into the paragraph so
that's a bit of a problem it could say maybe here there are many advantages to
admissions charges instead it actually starts off with this general statement
and this would be better off in the previous paragraph in the introduction
so let's look at how this essay can be assessed against the band descriptors
used by IELTS examiner's let's look at first of all the task response
descriptors I'm just going to zoom in here
so it's certainly going to pass a band 4 is it a band five addresses the task
only partially the format may be inappropriate I think it's better than
this it's fairly well covered it's covered all the main points so I think
it's better than a five is it a six addresses all parts of the task yes it
does although some parts may be more fully covered than others I think
the covered is fairly balanced so it could be better than this relevant
position yes there's an opinion conclusions may become unclear or
repetitive not really the opinion is quite good presents relevant main ideas
but some may be inadequately developed or unclear inadequately developed yes
this essay is I think the ideas are inadequately developed the ideas could
be expanded with specific examples so for example in paragraph two the writer
could write an example of a free local museum which is dirty and under maintained
just to support this argument here so it needs an example similarly here there
could be an example in paragraph three of a museum which does charge an
entrance fee and is almost always empty and you can make up an example of that
so it needs an example to support the ideas so I would say that this is
definitely a band 6 essay for task response but but how many words are in
this ok it's actually only 220 words 220 words is below the word count of 250
which means that I must reduce the task response score by 1
It doesn't have enough words so it's a band 5 it would have been a band 6 but with
another needed 30 more words to get a band 6 let's look at coherence and
cohesion now so let's go down to band 4 presents information and ideas yes but
these are not arranged coherently they are arranged coherently and there was no
there is clear progression so it's better than this so let's go up presents
information with some organization yes but there may be a lack of overall
progression no there is overall progression that's okay it's better than
this but makes inadequate inaccurate or overuse of cohesive devices cohesive
devices let's have a look what cohesive devices are used here because when I was
reading it that's the one thing that stood out that there weren't many so
we've got however however usually we got so as well since but and so that so
there are some cohesive devices there I just feel that there needs to be more
signposting especially at the start of paragraph 2 so that's one problem area
so it's inadequate use of cohesive devices I think maybe repetitive because
of lack of referencing there is quite a bit of referencing in this essay so in
paragraph 3 we got they which refers back to children or family and in paragraph 4
it refers back to Auckland Museum and you've got it here again and it again referring
back to Auckland museum so there was some accurate use of referencing but not
much referencing so I wouldn't say lack of referencing so it's possibly up here
let's have a look arranges information and ideas coherently yes clear overall
progression yes uses cohesive devices effectively I'm
not sure about that one I would tend to go for this level which is a band five
but some examiners might give this a band six it depends whether or not they think
cohesive devices are used effectively they're certainly not faulty there's not
mistakes being made with them so it's a tricky one I would say a band five though
it's a band five or possibly a band six lexical resource next with lexical
resource we're looking for certainly for a band seven we're looking for precise
language good collocations variety in the use of language not too many
mistakes easy to understand so the language should not get in the way of
communication so let's have a look at some of the language used in this essay
some positive things we've got unique places we've got popular places
although you've got places repeated here the writer could use a different
word instead of this you've also got exhibits but I'll come back to this
poorly maintained that's a good collocation as well but again I'll come
back to this funds is another good use a good piece of language in paragraph
three you've got afford I also like the language open for everyone and in
paragraph four come up with a plan that's quite a nice piece of language
too I think one problem though with the
essay is the overuse of admission so you've got the word here admission
admissions here admission admissions admission so admission again so the word
admission has been used many many times and it appears in the task question and
you want to try and avoid using words in the task if at all possible so instead
the writer could have used phrases like entrance fee or entrance
charge and they've also used the word incorrectly admissions are one thing
which may keep the customer from entering it's not admissions and
admission is when you enter a building the writer should be writing admission
charges so having an admission charge is a
disadvantage so the word is actually being repeated a lot and it's used
incorrectly as well there's not too much to say negatively about the use of
language the language is quite natural there is one other point that I
would bring up is the word horrible I think is horrible this is very emotive
language so the register is not correct for an essay for an academic essay you
wouldn't write I think is horrible in an academic essay so you want to try and
keep your your emotions out of it so I would say here even not to go and
experience the greatness of the museum which I think should be open for
everyone also doing a charity is a not a natural collocation we would say running
a charity there are a few spelling mistakes as well exhibits should have an
H here poorly maintained poorly is spelt like this and also government now
we say government but there's actually an N hiding in the word and the word
government is also misspelled further down so you've got a few this writer
has got a few spelling mistakes as well so I think overall while the writing the
vocabulary is easy to understand and there's not too many examples of
unnatural language there is a general lack of flexibility and precise language
one other thing I wanted to point out as well is the greatness of the museum
that's not very natural language so how does this compare with the band
descriptors limited range of vocabulary possibly but it's that's okay maybe
limited noticeable errors in spelling that may cause some difficulty for the
reader no I can understand the essay this is one of the big differences
between a band 5 and a band 6 at band 5 may cause some difficulty but band 6
they do not impede communication so it's probably more like a band 6 adequate
range of vocabulary yes attempts to use less common vocabulary yes some
inaccuracy yes so it looks like a band 6 is it a band 7 sufficient possibly
flexibility and precision No so it's going to be a band 6 for lexical
resource grammar grammatical range and accuracy next let's have a
look admission is required so you've got a passive there and there's also a few
uses of relative clauses which keeps two funds which keeps so a relative clause
there however it should be funds which keep the museum running funds keep and
some relative clauses here which so that museum which is free there's a few errors
with the use of articles should be they will go to a museum which is free and
also near the top the history I would simply write to experience history from
past and it should also be the past there's a nice sentence starter in
paragraph two without admission so that's a good thing would be another
good use of grammar in paragraph three which which may here but also an error
which doesn't so children or family is plural so which don't earn much
and in paragraph four there is so that so there was a dependent clause here a
plan so that so there is some there are some complex sentences not too
many mistakes good overall control of grammar very few errors but not a great
variety of structures no conditionals not many dependent clauses so how does
that compare with the band descriptors so this is a band six over here and five
band four very limited no it's not very limited rare use no there are a few
relative clauses limited range of structures I would say yes it is limited
attempts complex sentences yes but these tend to be less accurate than simple
sentences I think they're used accurately frequent grammatical errors no and again
we've got this issue of can cause some difficulty do the grammatical
errors cause difficulty for the reader no they don't and up here here there may
be grammatical errors but they rarely reduce communication so I think we're up
here there was a mix of simple and complex sentence forms there could be
more so we're definitely at a band six are we at a band seven uses a
variety no you would need wider range things like conditionals to have a
variety of complex structures so we're definitely at a band six for grammar
which means that the overall band score is 5.5 the writer would have got a band
six if they had written 30 words more because it's the the task response that
affected it task response there if that was a six you would get 5.75
overall which is rounded up to a six so that's the difference between a
six and a 5.5 it was the the lack of words had the writer simply done a word
count they would have noticed they had to write thirty words more maybe they
ran out of time but that was the difference between a five point five and
a six so there's the score for this essay hope that helps