IELTS WRITING TASK 2 : THE BENEFITS AND RISKS OF WATCHING TELEVISION FOR CHILDREN

kids and TV - pros & cons

Television is a device that can afford many attractions for people which can be easily accessed from home. As an advanced technology, many people believe that television accord a lot of benefits, while others also consider that it has some risks and challenges, as a result. Particularly for children, the effect of watching television can influence many aspects of their life such as their behavior, their health, and their way of thinking. In this paper, I would like to explain the merits of watching television for children compared to the drawbacks.

Admittedly, television provides various interesting programs for children. Cartoons are a prime example of television programs that are in demand by kids. This kind of entertainment is relatively cheaper than the others. Moreover, television can also be a medium for education. Several channels present enlightening programs that are beneficial and insightful. For instance, Laptop si Unyil is a program from TransTV that gives information about science and technology. Children can learn about the utilization of science and technology in their surroundings by watching it. Additionally, the attraction served by television is beyond its limits. This is possible to show the circumstances under the sea, the space sightings, or the original creatures from far away, which is difficult for them to see in person. This opportunity can increase the imagination of kids.

However, the risks of watching television must be considered. The most remarkable consequence is the health of the eyes. Because television emits UV radiation, watching it for a long time and close distance can cause several eye problems like minus and cylinder. Another challenge is the addiction effect. It is easy for kids to lose track of time when they watch television. As a result, they do not have time for other activities. Furthermore, if children spend almost all their spare time watching television, it affects their behavior. The opportunity to connect with other people is lost and children become individual people. It endangers their ability to make networking that is needed for the future. More dangerous, if children watch television without control, they can not select what they see. Children possibly imitate a bad attitude that is shown such as fighting and bullying.

To sum up, the benefits and risks of watching television will always be debated. But personally, I believe that the disadvantages of it are more so the parents need to strictly monitor their kids when they watch television.

As there are several practice essays related to the topic of television and its effect on children, it would have helped if the writer included the specific prompt that was being addressed by this essay. That is the only way for me to be sure that the correct response is being provided for the given topic and that no misinterpretation occurred in the response development. Without that, I will offer a general review of the work, without considering the appropriateness of the provided response.

For starters, the essay is definitely overwritten and would not be possible to complete within the 40 minute time frame in an actual test setting. While being able to write 400 words in English is indeed admirable, the time allocation allows for no more than 300 words to be impressive to the examiner. The provided sentences are too long and do not properly represent the correct sentence mix as required for the test. The writer also uses limits his punctuation usage to mere exchanges of commas and periods, which show a limited sentence structure understanding and an inability to create other types of sentences using other punctuation marks. There are scoring considerations to be reflected in the writing, not just a word count. These other scoring elements are what will either increase or decrease the test results. The writer must utilize a 40 minute timer the next time he writes his practice essay.

When the prompt asks the writer to discuss the benefits and merits of watching television, the last thing the writer should do is provide a personal opinion within the actual response presentation. In fact, the writer's opinion in this essay is not clear since he did not establish a summary outline of the benefit and drawback topics through a properly developed thesis statement. The first paragraph is lacking when it comes to meeting the accuracy requirements. For all its wordiness, it misses out on several key points for a concise and complete rundown paragraph.

The writer included a personal opinion in the conclusion when it was not required by the discussion requirement. This has created a failing concluding paragraph because a new topic was introduced for discussion, but it was not fully developed in the actual essay. Additionally, the new topic created a prompt deviation as a personal opinion and suggestions are not necessary in this discussion. Hence, the essay closed without a proper summary conclusion and could automatically receive a failing mark due to the incorrect concluding statement format. The essay is missing the discussion recap as required in the reverse paraphrase conclusion.