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Task 2 · Two-part question · Environment

Why people keep flying despite the climate cost

Awareness has not reduced air travel. The band 9 answer explains why moral persuasion has to fail here, and lets the policy follow from that.

The question

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task. Write about the following topic. Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words.

Most people are now aware of the environmental damage caused by air travel, yet the number of flights taken each year continues to rise. Why do people keep flying? What should be done about this?

A 250-word discursive essay — the half of the paper that carries two thirds of the marks. This prompt is original, written in the standard format for teaching purposes — it is not taken from any past paper.

What separates the three answers

The 6.5 and the 7.5 both end up recommending a tax; only the 9 first explains why an appeal to conscience is guaranteed to lose, which is what turns the tax from a suggestion into a conclusion.

The three answers

Band 6.5

263 words (the task asks for at least 250)

The answer works. It addresses the task, the reader follows it, and the meaning survives — but ideas stay general, linking is mechanical, wording repeats, and small errors are visible throughout.

The answer

Nowadays a lot of people know that the airplanes are very bad for the environment, but in spite of this the number of the flights is increasing every year. In this essay I will explain why this happen and what we should do4.

The first reason is that flying is very cheap now. Many low cost companies sell the tickets for a very cheap price, sometimes cheaper than the train3. If a family want to go for holiday, of course they will choose the cheap option. Also flying is very fast. If you go to another country by car or by train it takes many hours or even days, but by plane it takes only two or three hours, so people prefer the plane because they do not want to waste their holiday in the travelling.

Another reason is that people think their own flight is not important. One person can think that if he does not fly, the plane will fly anyway, so there is no difference2. Moreover many people must fly for their job or to visit their family who lives in the other country, so they have no choice. For example my cousin works in a company which has offices in three countries and he must take the plane almost every month.

In my opinion the government should put a tax on the flights and make the trains cheaper.1

In conclusion, people continue to fly because it is cheap and fast and they think one person can not change anything, and the governments should use taxes to reduce this problem.

What an examiner notices

  1. 1. Task response

    “In my opinion the government should put a tax on the flights and make the trains cheaper.”

    Two policies, seventeen words, no explanation of who pays, how much, or why it would work. The second question deserved a paragraph and received a sentence.

  2. 2. Task response

    “if he does not fly, the plane will fly anyway, so there is no difference”

    The best idea in the essay, and it is dropped immediately. Recognising an idea is worth less than following it somewhere.

  3. 3. Lexical resource

    “sell the tickets for a very cheap price, sometimes cheaper than the train”

    'Cheap' three times in two sentences, and prices are low rather than cheap in careful English. The writer has one word for the concept.

  4. 4. Grammatical range and accuracy

    “I will explain why this happen and what we should do”

    A missing third-person inflection in the introduction, repeated shortly afterwards in 'If a family want to go for holiday'.

One honest caveat

Band labels here describe what each piece of writing demonstrates against the four published assessment areas, paraphrased in plain language. They are teaching illustrations produced for this site, not official material, and no sample has been marked by a test provider. Real scripts are marked whole; two answers with the same label can still look quite different from each other, and nothing on this page can promise anyone a particular result.

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