Student Talk / Listening: 8.5 - I got my IELTS result today [12]

Hello everybody!
I just got my IELTS result about 20 minutes ago and this was unbelievable. I would like to express my thanks to all of the moderators, contributors and other members who have taken time to give me valuable corrections and recommendations since I started joining this forum and my writing and grammar has improved a lot!

Here is my score:
Listening: 8.5
Reading: 8.0
Writing: 8.0
Speaking: 8.0
Overall: 8.0
Thank you very much!

Writing Feedback / IELTS Task 2: Opinion on wearing uniforms in schools [5]

Topic: Wearing uniforms is popular in schools, but some people argue that it might cause damage to children's individuality. What is your opinion?

Uniforms are often regarded as an integral part of various educational institutions today. In my opinion, far from eliminating individuality, students can derive huge benefits from wearing uniforms.

To begin with, one obvious advantage that wearing uniforms brings about is the lower rates of bullying problems linked to clothes. There is no doubt that each school consists of a myriad of students from different family backgrounds, of which those from affluent households are able to show off the most stylish outfits. This has led to the fact that less fortunate students feel inferior to others and sometimes they become the victims of bullying due to their ordinary clothes. Thanks to the use of uniforms, bullies are effortlessly tackled and the economic discrepancy between students seems to be no more a thorny issue. Accordingly, uniforms contribute to promoting unity amongst children.

Meanwhile, some children claim that wearing uniforms would limit their individuality and by wearing regular clothes are they entitled to express their personality. However, it is academic knowledge that should be placed emphasis on when it comes to school rather than expression of egoism. In fact, if children are allowed to wear any kinds of clothes, then there is a rise in the competition for becoming the trendiest one in their schools and their academic performance is likely to be sacrificed as a consequence. Briefly, wearing similar clothes enables students to focus on their main targets of going to schools rather than other external factors.

To sum up, I would have to reiterate the importance of school uniforms. On the grounds that they encourage a sense of unity and concentration of school-goers, I believe that wearing them should be maintained as a rule.

Writing Feedback / IELTS: agricultural land becomes less productive; Worldwide land degradation [2]

Topic: The pie chart below shows the main reasons why agricultural land becomes less productive. The table shows how these causes affected three regions of the world during the 1990s. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The pie chart illustrates the main incentives why worldwide land was degraded around the world whereas the table depicts the impacts of these reasons on three different areas throughout the 1990s.

Overall, over-grazing was responsible for the majority of counterproductive agricultural land around the world. Likewise, the effects of three reasons varied considerably with Europe having the largest proportion of land degradation.

Over one third of global land were less productive owing over-grazing, 5% higher than the second major cause, deforestation. This was closely followed by over-cultivation that accounted for 28% while other factors constituted the remaining 7%.

Simultaneously, Europe suffered the largest loss of land productivity with around 23%, of which deforestation made up nearly one tenth. Over-cultivation and over-grazing took up relatively smaller percentages at 7.7% and 5.5% respectively. Meanwhile, the predominant cause of degradation of land in Oceania was over-grazing at approximately 11% out of a total of 13% while the other reasons had little impact. In North America, statistics for land degradation was lowest at 5%, mainly caused by over-cultivation with 3.3%.

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