Can advertising BEATS our own judgement when we buy something ?

Hi. My name's Phuong. I'm 18. I have been learning IELTS for 2 days. I hope to get 7.0 on the test around 19 July. I'd be very thankful if you can help me with my task 2 essay below. Then I'm also ready to help you back. Have a nice day!

The power of advertising

Writing task 2:
Write about the following topic:
Today, the high sales of popular consumer goods reflect the power of advertising and not the real needs of the society in which they are sold. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words.

MY ANSWER:

Some people believe that the better-selling products nowadays shows the impact of utilizing advertisements instead of the truthful demand by the buyers. Personally, I completely disagree with this view.

For variety of reasons, it would be wrong to attribute the whole success of some popular products not to what the consumers truly want but the poweful advertising. Firstly, it is the customers who make the decision on which products to purchase in order to cater for their own demands without harming their financial health. Secondly, in the free market today, advertising is becoming saturated with itself. For example, in the city I am from, there are the huge array of advertisements varying from the malls downtown to the online shops, which turns out overwhelming and unreliable to me. Therefore, I believe that the only thing can make us buy something is our own knowledgeable judgement and free will.

In my opinion, we should all regard advertising as a tool to call for customers' attention rather than force people to buy a product. In fact, I would argue that it goes against the values of a free and fair society to force a group of people to do something against their will. It is beneficial for all members of society to purchase a high quality product if they want with equal opportunities given to all sellers. This will result in a healthily competitive market where each seller have to do best to enhance their products' real quality to satisy the changing needs of customers and to rival others. Thanks to trustworthy goods, a more productive and prosperous nation will rise up and promise us a better lives.

In conclusion, I do not believe that advertising would be the key to the marketplace where nowadays customers are smart and independent enough to make the best choice.

304 words

Viet, While your 2 body paragraphs contain the correct number of sentences to represent a full paragraph, your opening paraphrase and concluding summary do not. Even though you wrote 305 words in this essay, in totality, the essay remains under developed in terms of discussion presentation. You aimed for a higher word count and forgot to focus on the content of the essay, which is vastly important than the number of words that you wrote. You would have received full scoring considerations even if you only wrote the minimum 250 words. Writing the minimum word count is enough to increase your LR and GRA score. It also allows you to have extra time to further improve the content of your essay. With over 300 words, I can sense that you not only did not use a timer when writing this essay, but that you also did not proof read your work due to the sentence structure errors in the presentation.

Your opening paraphrase, though close to the original, does not properly depict a mix of simple and complex sentences. You should have divided that presentation, as well as the concluding summary, into at least 3 sentences per paragraph to meet the C&C requirements and TA considerations. This could have been written in a more effective format such as :

Consumer goods these days are said to be a reflection of the requirements of our current culture. That is why the popular items have a high selling rate. I am in total disagreement with this point of view for a number of reasons.

First....

Second...

That is why I believe that...

In the end...

Now, you are being scored heavily on your ability to fully explain your reasons per paragraph within a 5 sentence limitation. It is never wise to discuss 2 topics in one paragraph because of that ruling. When you discuss more than one topic per paragraph, you end up with the current presentation you have, little explained nor justified reasons which cannot convince the reader that your opinion is the correct one. There is a 3 topic allotment for every body of paragraph after the opening statement but before the concluding summary. Use it properly, the example I showed you indicates the correct writing format for the body paragraphs.

Your concluding statement must be a clear restatement of the prompt paraphrase, the 3 discussion points, and your opinion. That is all that is required there. You must never present a new discussion topic as you did here because you ended up with an open ended or unfinished essay presentation.