Nowadays, more and more people decide to have children later in their life. What are the reasons? Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?: IELTS Writing Task

Bhargavee Sisodia

15 Nov 2024

Writing an essay is the shared task in the second portion of the IELTS writing exam for each category — Academic and General Training. Examinees must compose an essay in this area of the test that is at least 250 words long during the allotted forty minutes. IELTS essay topics come in a variety of forms; this blog will go over how to approach them appropriately and provide a wealth of writing task 2 topics and answers.

IELTS essay segment: Categories of Essay

IELTS essay topics frequently fall into six basic groups, and each category has a distinct response pattern. To evaluate the allotted issue and create a suitable answer, you must be completely conversant in each format. Your score on the IELTS writing assignment 2 will drop if you are unable to determine which category your topics belong in.

• Problem Solution: For these essays, you are required to research the origins and effects of significant issues that are associated with your topic. Writings of this kind shouldn't contain personal recommendations or viewpoints.
• Advantage & Disadvantage: In this type of essay, you must list the advantages and disadvantages of the given subject. Your essay's main body should be balanced, with separate paragraphs discussing the benefits and drawbacks of the chosen subject. Do not express your opinion if it is not required to address the matter.
• Discussion: Writing an essay with this format enables you to address opposing viewpoints. Don't divulge your viewpoint if it isn't asked for explicitly. There will be moments when these articles invite you to offer your thoughts, therefore you will need to do so. 
• Balanced Opinion: In this type of essay, you have to state your ideas regarding the topic succinctly and clearly. You can't support one side of the debate over the other; you have to defend both. You should begin and conclude the essay with objective presentations of your thoughts.
• Opinion: You must voice your perspective in this essay, whether its agreement or disagreement. Make strong arguments and present evidence to support your position. Partially supporting or opposing the topic at hand is not allowed. It is crucial to maintain your opinion under all circumstances.
• Direct Question/Double Question: This kind of essay poses one or more direct questions, to which you should respond in the form of an essay using concise, clear language and examples. Each topic question should be addressed in a different paragraph within the main body of the essay, with appropriate transitional language.

Four main evaluation areas make up your IELTS writing band score; each category contributes 25% to your overall score. You should concentrate on each of the following things in order to perform well on each evaluation. Your final score will be based on how well you meet these assessment requirements. 

IELTS Writing: Assessment criteria 

The four key assessment criteria for IELTS writing task 2 topics are: 

• Task Achievement / Task Response: This criterion evaluates how well you were able to formulate an answer to the question in your IELTS writing task 2 topics. This evaluates if you wrote the necessary minimum of 250 words in the allotted 40 minutes with proper paraphrasing and whether you provided examples and evidence to back up your arguments.
• Coherence and Cohesion: The logical flow and consistency of thoughts are referred to as coherence. It's a poorly cohesive paragraph with fragmented ideas. The ability to create writing that flows naturally and establishes logical links between sentences is known as cohesion. 
• Lexical Resource: This criterion assesses the candidate’s ability to use a wide range of vocabulary without any flaws in the correct context. The use of ample vocabulary coupled with relevant instances helps you score more in this assessment category.
• Grammatical Accuracy and Range: This part assesses your command of the grammatical range in terms of accuracy, sophistication, and precision. It considers factors like employing nouns, using the proper punctuation, utilizing the correct tense, etc. 

IELTS essay tips: How to paraphrase successfully

Paraphrasing: Paraphrasing is the act of rewording or restating a text using new words or expressions while maintaining its original meaning. It is a method of putting the same idea in a new way and is often used to summarize, simplify, and explain information without precisely following the original text. 

While using paraphrasing in your essay, you need to be aware of a few factors so that it doesn’t affect the flow of your writing or result in miscommunication. A few of those factors are mentioned below:

Altering the word form: Paraphrasing need not specifically require you to use synonyms of original words to keep the meaning of the sentence intact. It can also be achieved by using the same words in different forms and changing the structure of the sentence in terms of placement of tense, nouns, prepositions, and adjectives. It is termed “skillful paraphrasing” as it represents your flexibility with sentence construction. So refrain from searching for synonyms all the time for paraphrasing. It is feasible to get a high IELTS writing band score with this type of paraphrasing. Eg. 

“Nowadays, more and more people decide to have children later in their life.” 

can be paraphrased as 

“Currently, more and more people are deciding to have children in the later phase of their lives.”

Explanation:

• Nowadays = Currently
• decide to have children  =  are deciding to have children in the later phase of their lives
• later in their life = the later phase of their lives.

Altering the sentence structure: Paraphrasing can be done by altering the structure of the sentence without using any synonyms. In this scenario, the sentence is divided into certain parts, and the position of these sub-sentences is altered to get a good paraphrased sentence. This type of alteration can be combined with a few additional synonyms and the score of the IELTS essay will skyrocket. Eg. 

“Nowadays, more and more people decide to have children later in their life.” 

can be paraphrased as 

“Having children later in life has become a common trend among several people, in recent times.”

Explanation:

• Having children later in life → Position Change
• more and more people decide  =  has become a common trend among several people
• in recent times = Nowadays → Use of synonyms and position change

Effect of Paraphrasing in Band Score: Paraphrasing is an important tool that has a major effect on your IELTS writing band score. 

IELTS writing task 2 topics with answers  

Identifying your essay category

After getting the IELTS writing task 2 topics, the most crucial and initial step is to determine which category your topic falls into. There are answer syntax requirements for every category of IELTS essay topics, which must be closely followed when writing the essay.

For example, if your essay topic is  “Nowadays, more and more people decide to have children later in their life. What are the reasons? Do advantages of this outweigh disadvantages?”, then comprehending the topic's instruction keywords should be your initial priority. The instruction keywords in this instance are:

• “Do advantages of this outweigh disadvantages?”: Clearly, this question within your topic implies that the topic belongs to the “Advantage and Disadvantage” essay category
•  “What are the reasons?”: This question is an addition to the topic statement and it urges you to stick to the reasons behind such a conjecture. Hence you need to add enough reasons for your advantages and disadvantages paragraphs. 

Since your topic belongs to the  “Advantage and Disadvantage” category, you need to add the advantageous pointers in one paragraph of the main body and the key disadvantages in the second paragraph. Refrain from adding your opinion or perspective as it is not stated in the topic statement.

Advantage and Disadvantage Essay: Structure

Introduction: Paraphrase the given information and answer the question asked in the topic statement. 

Main Body: The main body should consist of 2 paragraphs.

• Paragraph 1: Discuss the advantage of the argument. Give specific reasons with examples to support it.
• Paragraph 2: Discuss the disadvantage of the argument. Give specific reasons with examples to support it.

Conclusion: Restate the problem statement and give a fulfilling conclusion.

Now let's have a look at the possible answers to the above topic from the “Advantage and Disadvantage” category for the IELTS writing band scores 6, 7, and 9. 

IELTS writing band score 6

Nowadays, many put off decisions to have children until later to fulfill several other responsibilities. This change's advantages and disadvantages will be thoroughly discussed in the essay

There are a lot of advantages to these choices. For example, a couple's relationship structure and duties change after having a kid, neccessitating a good amount of emotional, financial, and physical strength. Thus, to be ready for the new chapter of their lives, parents should fulfill their career ambition and achieve level of financial stability before having a kid. Furthermore, when someone becomes a parents involves a lot of compromises from both of them to help the kid grow in a healthy environment. This can only be achieved if the parents are emotionally and financially satisfied with their lives, which can be achieved after a certain age.

But, these choices have side effects. Up to a certain age, a woman is physically allowed to bear a healthy kid; after which medical inconsistencies occur like Down syndrom in the kid, hormonal disorder in the mother or even loss of child after conception. Older parents are no longer physically capable to raise their children because they lack the physical strength in old age. For example, young parents have the strength and motivation to run after their kids when they go on play dates, but older parents find it difficult as they are engulfed by joint pains, muscle spasms, and other ailment due to old age.

In conclusion, the decision to have children later in life offers its fair share of benefits, like ample savings and a good career growth in the prime of life, but it also has divastating consequences, due to medical issues and infertility. 

Notes on the above answer: 

• The words in both underlined and italics represent Grammatical mistakes which degrade the score in this criterion. 
• The underlined words indicate a lack of paraphrasing decreasing the score in Task Achievement. 
• Spelling errors are indicated with italicized words reducing the Lexical Resources score.
• The number of linking words is lower, and words in bold like “parents”, “children”, and “kid” have been repeated a lot, reducing the score of Cohesion and Coherence.

IELTS writing band score 7

These days, individuals prioritize a number of other obligations over family planning decisions, delaying them for later. The benefits and drawbacks of this change are debatable and will be covered in-depth in the essay.

Granted, these decisions provide many benefits. For example, there is a significant change in responsibilities and dynamics within the relationship of a couple after childbirth, which require a lot of physical strength, financial stability and emotional maturity. So it is better for people to satisfy their professional priorities and achieve a certain financial stability before bringing a child into the world so that they are prepared for the new journey. Moreover, motherhood requires a lot more sacrifices than fatherhood, hence it is important for a mother to be completely prepared for those shift in priorities otherwise both the parents and child can be emotionally scarred for life.

However, there are drawbacks to such decisions. A woman is physically permitted to carry a healthy child to a specific age, after which, risks of miscarriages, and infertility sky-rocket. Moreover, growing older renders parents physically unfit for their children, meaning they are frequently unable to provide them with the physical support they require while growing up. For example, in their late thirties, many couples fail to conceive organically and need to go through a lot of medical procedures like to bring their child into the world. 

All in all, having a child later in life offers numerous pros, such as prudent financial management, and higher job accomplishment, but it also has some cons, due to their physical and biological constraints.  

Notes on the above answer: 

• The words in both underlined and italics represent Grammatical mistakes degrading the score in this criterion.  
• The amount of relevant linking words is less than expected, and words in bold like “financial”, “child”, and “physical” have been repeated, reducing the score in Cohesion and Coherence. 
• The phrases in bold are redundantly used which has decreased the score in Cohesion.

IELTS writing band score 9

As per the recent trend, people tend to push their family planning decisions for later phases of their lives, prioritizing several other responsibilities. One might argue about the advantages and disadvantages of such a shift in conception strategies which will be elaborated in detail in the essay.

On one hand, such choices have several perks like enhanced career planning, better financial stability, and improved relationships between couples due to the chance of spending quality time before embarking on the journey called parenthood. To illustrate, every parent undergoes a drastic realignment of responsibilities after the birth of a child. Hence, it is beneficial for spouses to achieve a majority of their professional and monetary goals before bringing a new progeny into this world. On top of that, nowadays, having children requires a lot of financial support for adequate education, proper apparel, and ample time for recreational activities to meet their psychological needs. So it is beneficial for folks to amplify their savings and prepare themselves emotionally and physically before embarking on the new journey of responsibilities. 

On the other hand, there are downsides to such a course of action. As the biological clock of a female allows them to bear a healthy child until a particular age, chances of miscarriages, genetically disabled offspring, and even infertility increase over time. There have been several instances, where companions have tried and failed to conceive due to delaying the decision to the last edge of their lives. Furthermore, old age makes the parents physically inadequate for their kids as a result, they fail to be there for them in the flesh in many circumstances. 

To conclude, while childbearing at a later age has many positives like relationship maturity and sound savings coupled with better career achievement, it has a bundle of genetic unpredictability as its drawbacks. 

Conclusion

To prepare for the IELTS writing test, you can obtain assistance from D-VIVID, the ultimate preparation partner for the IELTS exam. We have successfully helped a vast range of candidates secure their desired IELTS writing band score thanks to our extensive compilation of common writing task 2 topics with answers. We have specially designed IELTS writing guidelines, study resources on IELTS essay topics, and excellent mentoring from knowledgeable and reputable dignitaries on IELTS writing task 2 topics, so you can be sure that your IELTS preparation will be engaging and informative. Please get in touch with us right now for an efficient and well-thought-out IELTS preparation experience.