Samples / Task 2 essay / Advantages and disadvantages / Band 7

Advantages and Disadvantages of Mobile Phones

An IELTS Academic Task 2 essay exploring the pros and cons of mobile phones, written at a Band 6.5 level.

The question

Mobile phones have changed the way people communicate, work and spend their free time. Do the advantages of mobile phones outweigh the disadvantages?

In the modern world, mobile phones have become an essential part of our daily lives. They have completely changed how we communicate, work, and spend our free time. Although there are some drawbacks associated with this technology, I believe that the advantages of mobile phones outweigh the disadvantages because they make life much more efficient. On the one hand, mobile phones provide many benefits for communication and work. In the past, people had to write letters or find a public telephone to contact others. Nowadays, we can communicate with anyone instantly, regardless of where they are in the world. Furthermore, many people now depend of their mobile phones for work. For example, business people can send emails, check documents, and join video meetings while they are traveling. This developments has made the workplace much more flexible and productive. Mobile phones also offer entertainment during our free time, such as playing games or watching videos, which is very convinient. On the other hand, there are some negative effects of using mobile phones too much. One major issue is that people are becoming less social in real life. Instead of talking to family members, many people prefer to look at their mobile phones. This can lead to phone addictive and damage personal relationships. Another disadvantage is that mobile phones can cause health problems. For instance, staring at a screen for a long time can hurt the eyes and cause bad posture. Moreover, employees often feel pressured to work during their free time because their boss can reach them at any hour. In conclusion, although mobile phones can cause some social and health problems, they play a important role in modern society. They have made communication much faster and allowed people to work more efficiently. Therefore, I believe the advantages of mobile phones are much stronger than the disadvantages.

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This answer was written by a language model to a real exam question, then scored by Bandly against the four public band descriptors. The band is a software estimate. No examiner has marked it, and the band a real examiner would award may differ. Scored with google/gemini-3.5-flash on 2026-09-08.

Estimated overall

Mean of the four criteria, rounded the way the exam rounds it.

Task Response 8

You are at Band 8 for Task Response because you clearly answer the ‘outweigh’ question and cover both advantages and disadvantages with relevant, extended support, but the discussion of how far benefits outweigh drawbacks is not explored in fully developed depth.

Coherence and Cohesion 7

You have logically organised your ideas with clear progression, and your paragraphing is appropriate, but you could use a wider range of cohesive devices to achieve a higher band.

Lexical Resource 6

You use an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, but occasional inaccuracies in word choice and word formation prevent a higher score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy 7

You demonstrate a good control of grammar and punctuation, using a variety of complex structures, but a few errors prevent a higher score.

What would take this higher

To improve your lexical resource score, you need to eliminate word formation and spelling errors such as writing 'phone addictive' instead of 'phone addiction' and misspelling 'convinient'. Additionally, focusing on precise collocations, like correcting 'depend of' to 'depend on', will help demonstrate the natural vocabulary control required for a higher band. Correcting these specific vocabulary slips throughout your essay would significantly strengthen your lexical profile.

Find out what this essay would score

Paste your own answer and Bandly returns an estimated band for each of the four criteria, with the sentences that pulled the score down. Under a cent an essay, about six seconds.

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