IELTS Task 2 - Motivation for sports persons

Question: In the past, sporting champions used to be motivated primarily by the desire to win a match or to break world records. These days, they are more likely to be motivated by the prize money and the opportunity to be famous.

What message does this send to young people and how does this attitude to sport affect the sports themselves?

genuine sports values protection

The glorious prospects of triumph, and the satisfaction of overcoming limitations used to be the major motivation for sportsmen and women of the old days. Today, however, fortune and fame have become the drive for the pursuit of sports amongst many modern sports players. This reflects the growth of negative materialism among the youth, and would have detrimental impacts on the sporting spirit.

First and foremost, this change in attitude towards sports is alarming to the young generation in general. It implies that money and fame have been overrated and have become the basic motivation in life for many young people today. Consequently, as people try to find shortcuts to wealth and fame, moral values such as integrity, goodwill, honesty, etc, would become of inferior importance. This change in the mindset of a number of young people is the grassroots to the problems faced by the sports community of modern days.

This phenomenon would make many alterations to the values of sports today. The ultimate goal of sports players, which used to be the conquest of their opponents and the limitations of themselves, would shift to seeking prizes and the chance to make headlines. As a result, instead of putting real efforts into practicing and trying to win, the sports players with materialistic mindset would find ways to cheat, or to attract attention from the public. The core values of sports, which are fair-play and genuine passion would be undermined and neglected. Sports themselves would become a source of exploitation for money-makers and fame-seekers.

In conclusion, the shift in the main drive of sports players today is the implication of the negative materialistic ways of thinking in a proportion of the youth, and would result in the undermining of genuine sports values from the old days. Therefore, it should be criticized and abolished by the mass of the society.

Please help me review this! Thank you

Hi Ruby

this changes
I would say:
This reflects the growth of negative materialism

Hi Ruby, I think you have misused the word "would" in your essay. We usually use "would" in a hypothetical case - "If I were you, I would rewrite my essay." Here, the case is not hypothetical, it is true, at least according to the prompt. So here are the changes I would make if I were you :)

major motivations

and would have detrimental impacts on the sporting spirit. {this "would" is confusing - I don't think you are talking about a hypothetical situation - maybe "and will have detrimental" or "and could have detrimental" or "and has detrimental"

money and fame have become overrated

goodwill, honesty, etc, would become of inferior importance.

is the grassroots to the problems {grassroots is an adjective}

This phenomenon has made many alterations

of their opponents and overcoming their own limitations, has shifted to seeking

players with materialistic mindsets have found ways to cheat,

genuine passion, have been undermined

Sports themselves have become

a source of exploitation for money-makers and fame-seekers.

and have resulted in the undermining

Tran, you did a very good representation of the topic for discussion in your opening paraphrase. It was excellent in the sense that you truly depicted the discussion without exaggerating and you also used enough English words to create complex sentences. Your vocabulary was good enough to be considered intermediate in use and score well in the LR section. So you are assured of a high score in the TA and LR section. However, your TA score will be prevented from reaching its highest possible score because your discussion outline accidentally began discussing the actual essay rather than simply introducing the opinion that you will be discussing. Your thesis statement should have been represented as follows:

It is my belief that the current motivation that the sports champions have sends a negative message and attitude to the young people who follow and participate in sports themselves.

The essay you wrote is good. However, the conclusion is composed of 2 sentences, one of which is a run-on. Divide all long sentences into topic sentences that will allow you to present at least 3 sentences in the paragraph so that you will be more aligned with the C&C presentation requirements for the concluding paragraph.

@afnitello99
I used "change" as a noun here, it's kind of confusing haha thanks anw.
@lhy1216 thank you ❤️
@TJLuschen I myself hesitated a lot too when choosing to use 'would' :))) Thank you for your advice ❤️
@Holt Thank you for your kind comment, as always your advice is so helpful!

@rubychautran
This essay impressed me right from the beginning with excellent paraphrasing. Throughout the body paragraphs you presented a very high level of vocabulary. Thie is really impressive!

In my opinion, it would be even better if you included an example to make the essay more persuasive. The example would best replace this repeated sentence "the ultimate goal.... make headlines".

Then I believe your chance of getting a high bands core is totally within reach!