Education · Problem and solution · Band 7.5
Why Reading and Writing Skills Are Declining
The question, a model answer written to the band 7.5 descriptors, why it scores that band against the 4 official criteria, topic vocabulary, and a common mistake to avoid.
Problem and solution
In many countries, young people's reading and writing skills are reported to be declining despite more years spent in formal schooling. What are the causes of this problem and what measures could be taken to address it? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words.
Model answer (band 7.5)
Written to the band 7.5 descriptors, not by a real examiner. Read it for structure and language, then write your own in your own words. Examiners can tell a memorised essay from an original one.
Reports of declining literacy among young people, despite longer school careers, point to a mismatch between how children now spend their time and the skills schools are meant to develop. This essay outlines the main causes of the problem and suggests practical responses.
The primary cause is almost certainly the displacement of reading by screen-based entertainment. Smartphones and short-form video deliver constant, low-effort stimulation, and few teenagers choose a novel over a fifteen-second clip when both are equally accessible. Because deep reading requires sustained attention, a generation accustomed to rapid content switching finds long texts genuinely harder to process, not merely less appealing. A secondary cause is curriculum pressure: with schools under pressure to cover broad syllabuses and prepare students for standardised tests, time for sustained, unstructured reading has been squeezed out of many timetables in favour of test-specific drilling.
Addressing this requires action on both fronts. Schools could reintroduce protected daily reading periods, free from testing pressure, where students read material of their own choosing rather than prescribed texts, since engagement improves comprehension far more than compulsion does. Parents also have a role: modelling reading at home, and limiting unsupervised screen time for younger children, builds habits before screens become dominant. On a policy level, libraries and literacy charities could be better funded to run community reading programmes that reach children whose schools lack the resources to do this alone.
In conclusion, falling literacy is driven mainly by competition from digital media and curriculum pressure, and reversing it will require coordinated effort from schools, families, and policymakers rather than any single intervention.
Why this answer scores band 7.5
Mapped to the 4 official IELTS Writing criteria.
- Task Response: identifies two distinct, well-explained causes and matches each with a realistic, specific solution rather than vague advice like 'raise awareness'.
- Coherence and Cohesion: a clean cause-then-solution structure with explicit signposting ('A secondary cause', 'Addressing this requires') that guides the reader.
- Lexical Resource: precise phrases like 'sustained attention', 'curriculum pressure' and 'protected reading periods' show topic-specific range beyond general vocabulary.
- Grammatical Range and Accuracy: complex sentence structures (reduced relative clauses, concessive clauses) used with high accuracy throughout.
Useful vocabulary & collocations
Phrases used in the model answer that lift Lexical Resource naturally.
Common mistake on this type of question
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