IELTS ESSAY : FINANCIAL AID TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

hello every guys, I 'm an ielts learner,can u give me some advice and estimate how much i can get if i write this essay in real ielts. thanks a lot for your help!!

Topic: the best and only way to assist developing countries is to provide them with financial aid. To what extent do you agree or disagree.

As is commonly understood, there is an increasingly gap between developed countries and developing countries. It can be seen that some developed countries and organization are proving financial assistance to the impoverished countries. However, it is disagreed that this can be the best and only way to assist developing countries. This will be proven by analyzing the necessity of developing their education and the real objective of supporters.

Firstly, education is an essential part in development. For instance, most developing countries are lack of educational resources, such as experienced teachers, evaluation systems and teaching facilities, which is usually neglected by local authorities. From this example, it is obvious that if the developed countries are unwilling to share their successful experience in education, the developing countries will remain undeveloped, even though they gain a great deal of economic support. Thus, the critical method to improve the condition of poor countries is to help them build up a complete educational system instead of financial aid.

In addition, it is well acknowledged that there is no free lunch in the world. This means some powerful countries provide financial support in order to acquire the right to exploit the local resources and target the local labour market. Indeed, they rarely provide local residents with any technological aid and even cause contamination in some areas. Therefore, developing countries should not totally depend on the financial support from powerful countries.

In conclusion, financial aid is not the only way to assist poor countries. And it has been proven that developing education and improving national technology and science level are the path they have to undergo if they really want to alter current situation.

I shall go to each paragraph OR struggling sentence and analyse your work in detail. Such is the action done that you will see why your marks are gained or lost.


The first sentence encourages both logical errors and grammatical errors. Logically saying, the 'gap' between countries is not clearly defined nor understood. Your readers will wonder, "What is that gap?" Grammatically saying, "increasingly" is an adverb, and an adverb should not accompany a noun to describe it. So your sentence should be changed to: "As commonly perceived (for a better vocabulary and word fluidity) , the gap between the economies of developed and developing countries increases instantaneously/continuously/constantly/..."

Your second sentence fails to prove accuracy of noun phrase. There is no such thing as "developed organizations".

Your third sentence is broken. The grammatical structure "can be the best" is to tell the capacity of something or some actions. Therefore, the phrase does not suit well here. Attempt to change it to another phrase or word, such as the simplified "is".

Your forth sentence is obscure. How on Earth--I wonder--does exploring the necessity of education determine the true degree of the statement you have stated above? This, I believe, should be neatly examined for the sake of better influence and greater impact.

Overall, your introduction is not quite compelling yet. The coherence of the introduction should be meliorated, for whether you believe it or not, the engagement of the introduction is the eye of the eagle--without it, no readers tend to continue reading (unless of course, your essay is being examined. This case, however, has a different way of wearing out: the teacher will not see any purpose for making your post with an exceeding grade).


Try to avoid the word "firstly", for it is so commonly used in examinations that it lessens the examiners' interest.

In your second sentence, notice that the word "lack" is either a noun or a verb, but not an adjective. The correct structure is "be lacking something" or "lack something". The second notification you need is that in education systems, the word "evaluation" is not used (because it conflicts with some mathematical expressions). We use the word "assessment" to express the act of gauging (evaluating) something.

Avoid rather useless phrases as "from this example, we learn something, blah, blah, blah". Try a closer approach (in this case, I have struck-through your phrase and thus have re-started the sentence with "It is obvious...").

Again, in that sentence, you must rewind your logical phase. It is unfair to say that without the help with education of developed countries, developing countries are never to be developed. In fact, some disparate countries such as Japan do not rely on the very support in the field to grow. Some countries try to "learn" (or for real, imitate) the educational system of developed countries and oftentimes succeed.

Your second paragraph demonstrates a fair view of why developed countries should not devote financial aids to developing countries. However, your perception does not grasp the whole of the field, and the use of language is not good enough. Then again, you can always do better than that.


I like your expression "there is no free lunch in the world". Is there? Ha, ha.

I can only heed your last sentence, which is not quite well-done. The word that grasps my attention is "totally". Developing countries do not rely TOTALLY on the support of powerful countries. No developing countries do. This sentence should be revised, changed, and adapted to a better sentence with fewer logical conflicts.

Anyhow, well done on this paragraph. Gee--cheers! But is it too short to be conflicting? Support your ideas with local evidence.


Why do SO many people find THE phrase "In conclusion" indispensable? I say, you erase the word or rephrase or use another phrase. The phrase "In conclusion" is used so usually that we find no attraction in between the sets.

Try a more communicative word than "alter". To alter means to change, not to improve. Here is some that I think might help: improve/meliorate/better/mend/ameliorate/amend/beautify/fine-tune/dist ill (or distil if you are British-English learner)/build/fructify/advance/upgrade/refine/... So many words are there, why try to use "alter"?

I find your post, however, exceptional in many ways. As it adopts much fewer errors, it is worth cheering already. The language seems to flow fluidly in some spots, which is just about enough (otherwise you would be SO outstanding). Try to lengthen your conclusion and add a lasting impression.

The marks I give you are:
(1) 5/9 on Arguments,
(2) 6/9 on Ideas and Evidence,
(3) 5/9 on Communicative Quality and Vocabulary and Sentence Structure,
all of which make quite a final band of 5.3 for Task 2 of an example IELTS test.

However, I should notify you that real examiners take it much more seriously but will mark your post much easier than I have. So you should expect about 5.3++ on this area.

Edit: Try a closer, more engaging approach (and talk directly).

As is commonly understood, there is an increasing gap between developed countries and developing countries. It can be seen that some developed countries and organization are providing financial assistance to the impoverished countries. However, it is disagreed that some people disagree about whether this can ...

Firstly, education is an essential part in of a country's development. For instance, most developing countries are lack of educational resources, such as ...

This means some powerful countries provide financial support in order to acquire the right to exploit the local resources and target the local labour market. ---- wow, this is a very astute point. You are smart!!

thanks for your generous help!!