IELTS Writing Task 2: researching planets that could be our possible home



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 money which has already been spent on space exploration would have contributed to buying medication such as treatment against malaria, which has been killing vast numbers of people in Africa, paying out welfare or opening shelters. Doing so would ensure numerous lives saved and life conditions improved at this very moment.

Secondly, there is no guarantee that trying to settle on other planets will be successful. Currently humans are not sufficiently advanced, technologically and socially, to be establishing colonies on Mars, or any other place in space. This indicates that investing enormous funds into the development of those areas with a vague chance of a breakthrough that will make space colonization possible is not exactly reasonable. If the idea of moving to another planet proves futile, valuable resources of time and money will be irreversibly lost, and humanity will still be facing the same problems and risks.

In conclusion, the idea of spending money on attempting to settle on another planet is not convincing, as people should concentrate on more important issues that already exist, and there is a chance that this study will not yield any results.
287 words

Her original answer was already good, but I couldn't leave it without comments or suggestions, could I? So what I challenged her to do was:
  1. Inject “do so (doing, done etc)” to practice referencing.
  2. Use “this (means, indicates, happens etc)” to practice referencing.
  3. Write in an example.
She did all of that ever so subtly. I bet these things didn't attract your attention. 

What would you suggest? What could be her next step to a higher score? Do you think we should spend money now on researching planets that could be our possible home?


Image credit: Nicolas Lobos on Unsplash 

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