IELTS Advantages and Disadvantages Essay: A Marked Answer, Sentence by Sentence

There is no shortage of advantages and disadvantages sample answers online. What there is a shortage of is samples with the marking shown. A candidate reads a model answer, agrees that it is good, and learns nothing transferable, because nobody has said which sentence earned which mark.

This page takes one complete answer and annotates it. Every paragraph is read against the four criteria, and the three specific changes that would move it up are named at the end. If you are not yet sure which version of this question you have been asked, start with the question trap, then come back here.

The question

More and more people are choosing to work remotely rather than travel to an office. Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?

This is the outweigh form. It is not asking you to list both sides evenly and stop. It asks for a verdict, and the verdict has to be stated in the introduction and still be true in the conclusion. An answer that sits on the fence here is capped on Task Response however well written it is.

The answer

Remote work has moved from an unusual arrangement to an ordinary one for a large share of office employees. While the loss of informal contact between colleagues is a genuine cost, the gains in time, cost and access to work are larger, and this essay will argue that the advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages. The most immediate benefit is the recovery of commuting time. A worker travelling an hour in each direction spends roughly ten hours a week getting to a desk, which is more than a full working day. Returned to the employee, that time goes into sleep, family or study, none of which the employer was paying for anyway. The saving is also financial, since transport, lunches bought near the office and work clothing are all costs that fall directly on the worker rather than on the company. A second advantage is that remote hiring widens who can work at all. Parents with young children, people with limited mobility and those living far from major cities have historically been excluded from many jobs by geography rather than by ability. When the job no longer requires a specific building, that barrier weakens. Employers benefit from the same change, because they can recruit from a much larger pool. The main disadvantage is the weakening of informal contact. Much of what a new employee learns comes from overhearing colleagues and asking small questions that nobody would schedule a meeting for, and this transfer is slower and less complete over video. Isolation is a real risk for people who live alone. However, these costs fall hardest on a specific group, junior staff in their first year, and they can be reduced by deliberate design, such as regular in person days, rather than by abandoning remote work entirely. On balance, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The gains in time and access are structural and apply to most workers, while the losses are concentrated in one group and respond to management. A hybrid arrangement captures most of the benefit at most of the cost that can be avoided.

That is 344 words. Now the marking.

Task Response

What it does well. The position appears in the introduction, is maintained throughout, and is restated in the conclusion without contradicting itself. Both sides are covered. Two advantages are developed and one disadvantage is developed, which is a legitimate weighting for an outweigh question, because the answer is arguing that one side is larger.

Where the marks come from. The disadvantage paragraph does not dismiss the objection. It names who is affected, junior staff in their first year, and says what reduces it. Task Response rewards ideas that are extended and supported, and an idea is extended when the writer says something further about it rather than repeating it in other words.

What holds it back. The second advantage paragraph ends on they can recruit from a much larger pool, which is a claim without a consequence. One more sentence saying what that changes for the employer would develop it.

Coherence and Cohesion

What it does well. Four paragraphs, one idea each, in a sequence a reader can predict. There is no firstly, no moreover and no in addition. The connections are carried by the sentences themselves: the most immediate benefit, a second advantage, the main disadvantage, on balance.

Where the marks come from. Returned to the employee, that time refers back to the ten hours without repeating them. The same change in paragraph three points back to the removal of the geographic barrier. That is referencing rather than signposting, and the band 8 descriptor explicitly rewards cohesion that a reader does not notice.

What holds it back. However opens the last sentence of paragraph four, which is the one mechanical connector left in the essay. It could be absorbed: these costs, though, fall hardest on a specific group.

Lexical Resource

What it does well. The precise choices are ordinary words used exactly: recovery of commuting time, fall directly on the worker, widens who can work at all, respond to management. None of them is rare and all of them are specific.

Where the marks come from. The topic vocabulary is handled without repetition. Remote work, remote hiring, the job no longer requires a specific building and a hybrid arrangement cover the same field from four directions.

What holds it back. Genuine cost and real risk are both evaluations without content, and they are the two weakest phrases in the essay. A cost that employers underestimate would say something.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

What it does well. The sentence lengths vary deliberately. Isolation is a real risk for people who live alone is eight words and sits between two long sentences, which is a rhythm choice rather than an accident. The participle opener Returned to the employee and the while clause in the introduction are both controlled.

Where the marks come from. The errors are hard to find. The descriptors at band 8 ask for the majority of sentences to be error free, and that is a question of control, not of ambition.

What holds it back. Every sentence in paragraph two is a statement in the same order. One inversion or one conditional would widen the range without risking accuracy.

The three changes that would move it up

1. Give the hiring paragraph a consequence. Add one sentence after a much larger pool: what does a larger pool get the employer? Cheaper hiring, faster hiring, or better candidates. This is the Task Response change.
2. Replace the two empty evaluations. Genuine cost and real risk both become specific. This is the Lexical Resource change and it costs nine words.
3. Vary one sentence opening in paragraph two. Not for decoration, but because four consecutive subject plus verb sentences read as a narrower range than the writer has. This is the Grammatical Range change.

Note what is not on that list. No rarer vocabulary, no extra length, no additional linking phrases, and no third advantage. The essay does not need more; it needs three sentences doing more work.

How to use this on your own writing

Write an answer to the same question in 40 minutes. Then mark it the way this page marks: four passes, one criterion at a time, and for each criterion write down one thing it does well and one thing holding it back. Do not mark all four at once. You will find the same two problems every time and miss the others.

Guessing your own band is the hard part, and it is the part that gets easier with a second opinion. Paste the answer into Bandly for an estimate on each of the four criteria with the sentences behind it. Treat it as an estimate rather than a result, and use it the way this page uses the criteria: to find out which one to work on next.