Irina Lutsenko

I often hear people criticize tests like  IELTS   or   C2 Proficiency  for having nothing to do with real life. Well, I disagree. So much so that I have to split the post on this topic into two parts. Part 1. First and foremost, a universal “real life” does not exist. A farmer in Nebraska, a university professor in Oxford, and I have very different real lives. The farmer won’t write essays, the university professor won’t make Stories on Instagram, and I will do both. Second, exams were created for very specific “real lives.” If you go to official exam websites and check their descriptions, you will find the following: “IELTS is an English language test for study, migration or work. IELTS is accepted by more than 10,000 employers, universities, schools and immigration bodies around the world.” “Preparing for and passing C2 Proficiency means you have the level of English that’s needed to study or work in a very senior professional or academic environment, for example ...

I want to share a great essay written by my student Svetlana Demchenko in my IELTS Academic Writing Target 7.5-8 group . Topic: In the future it may be necessary for us to live on other planets. For this reason, some people believe that we should spend money now researching planets that could be a possible home, such as Mars. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Answer: There is a possibility that people will need to colonize other planets and, consequently, that some funds have to be invested in this research now. I fully disagree with this opinion for two reasons. First, the money allocated to finding another potential home for humanity should rather be spent on more pressing problems that are already harming an enormous number of people. Taking into account the ultimate aim of space colonization, that is, saving people’s lives, it is a considerably more plausible idea to spend resources on battling various diseases, eliminating poverty and other social issues. The amount of mon...