Some people believe that organic food should be affordable for everyone, while others argue that its higher price is justified by its health and environmental benefits. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
This IELTS Writing Task 2 answer was marked Band 5.5 on the four official criteria. Its strongest criterion was Task Response (6); Grammatical Range & Accuracy (5) held it back. The biggest single improvement: Develop the extent of your opinion by directly weighing affordability against the opposing benefits: build the thesis around "although organic farming may have environmental benefits, organic food should not be financially inaccessible to low-income households."
How it was marked
| Criterion | Band | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Task Response | 6 | The essay presents a clear position in statements such as "I firmly believe that although the cost of organic food should be considered, it should also be affordable to the public" and addresses affordability, health and social inequality. However, it does not fully examine the opposing view that a higher price is justified by environmental benefits, and several ideas, including "it can aggravate the bad relationship between the public and governments," are insufficiently explained or developed. |
| Lexical Resource | 5 | The essay uses some relevant topic vocabulary, including "organic food," "low-income families," "financial stress," and "governmental policies," but its range is limited and several word choices, spellings and collocations are inaccurate. Errors such as "content," "Fome," "heathy," and "effet," together with phrases like "keep having health," reduce precision and naturalness. |
| Grammatical Range & Accuracy | 5 | The writer attempts a range of structures, including concessive clauses in "although the cost of organic food should be considered" and relative clauses in "which can make a positive effet on their well-being," but grammatical errors occur frequently throughout the response. Problems with articles, prepositions, verb forms, plurals and sentence construction are visible in examples such as "a increasing social concern," "regardless the level of income," and "people who are used to consume organic food." |
| Coherence & Cohesion | 6 | The response has a clear four-paragraph structure, with the introduction followed by personal and societal arguments and a conclusion, and signposting such as "On a personal level" and "From a societal perspective" helps the reader follow the organisation. Nevertheless, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or unclear, as in the repeated use of "As a result" and the long, awkward relationship between "financial stress" and "the bad relationship between the public and governments." |
The answer
A learner answer, not a model answer — study what the marks reward, don't copy it.
Corrections from the marking
a increasing social concern
an increasing social concern
Use "an" before a vowel sound, as in "an increasing".
regardless the level of income
regardless of the level of income
The preposition "of" is required after "regardless".
others content that
others contend that
"Content" is not the correct verb here; the verb meaning to argue is "contend".
selling with higher price of healthy food is reasonable
selling healthy food at a higher price is reasonable
Use the construction "sell something at a price" and include the article "a" before the singular countable noun "price".
selling with higher price of healthy food
charging a higher price for healthy food
"Charging a price" is the natural collocation, whereas "selling with higher price" is not idiomatic.
both health and environment
both health and the environment
The definite article is required before the specific concept "environment".
Fome my perspective
From my perspective
"Fome" is a spelling error; the correct word is "From".
which should be sold with a reasonable price
which should be sold at a reasonable price
The correct preposition for the price at which something is sold is "at".
How this answer could score higher
- Develop the extent of your opinion by directly weighing affordability against the opposing benefits: build the thesis around "although organic farming may have environmental benefits, organic food should not be financially inaccessible to low-income households."
- Improve grammatical accuracy through proofreading, especially errors in "a increasing," "regardless the level," and "are used to consume," because frequent basic errors are limiting Grammatical Range and Accuracy.
- Learn and use natural collocations instead of translating directly: replace "keep having health" and "inadequate to be affordable with healthy food" with "maintain good health" and "unable to afford healthy food."
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