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Task 2 · Positive or negative development · Education

Recorded material replacing the live lecture

A positive-or-negative essay on online lectures, where the band 9 answer argues that recording removes something whose value had already gone.

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.

At many universities, live lectures are being replaced by recorded material which students watch in their own time. Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?

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 announces a verdict in the introduction and quietly withdraws it in the conclusion. The 7.5 attaches a condition and keeps it. The 9 argues that the lecture was never where the value lay, which changes what the question is even about.

The three answers

Band 6.5

254 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

These days, many universities are stopping the live lectures and they are giving the recorded videos to the students, which they can watch at the home. In my opinion, this change has some good points and some bad points, but I think it is more positive1.

Firstly, the recorded lectures are very convenient. The students can watch them at any time and they can stop the video and repeat the difficult parts, which is not possible in the class. This is very helpful for the students who are not understanding quickly. Also, the students who are doing the part time job or who are living far away from the campus can save the travelling time and use it for the study. Also they can watch the same lecture again before the examination, which is giving them more confidence.

Secondly, there are some problems also.4 The students are not meeting the teacher face to face, so they can not ask the questions immediately. Many students are also lazy and they are not watching the videos regularly2, and then they are doing everything in the last week before the exam. Moreover, the university life is not only the study, it is also the friends and the discussions5, and the recorded lectures are taking this away.

In conclusion, the recorded lectures are giving the flexibility to the students3, but they are also creating the problems like the lack of the discipline and the interaction. Therefore I think the both systems should be used together in the universities.

What an examiner notices

  1. 1. Task response

    “but I think it is more positive”

    A verdict, stated clearly. The conclusion then recommends using both systems together, so the essay ends up answering its own question twice, differently.

  2. 2. Grammatical range and accuracy

    “Many students are also lazy and they are not watching the videos regularly”

    Habitual behaviour in the present continuous. The same tense choice runs through every paragraph of the essay.

  3. 3. Lexical resource

    “the recorded lectures are giving the flexibility to the students”

    'Flexibility', 'convenient' and 'helpful' between them carry all the positive evaluation in the essay, and each is used more than once.

  4. 4. Coherence and cohesion

    “Secondly, there are some problems also.”

    'Secondly' announces continuation while the paragraph reverses the argument. The linker contradicts what it introduces.

  5. 5. Grammatical range and accuracy

    “the university life is not only the study, it is also the friends and the discussions”

    Two independent clauses joined by a comma, and three definite articles before nouns used generically.

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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