Music - a method for entertaining or an essential impact on society? Ielts 2 essay

SOME SAY THAT MUSIC PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN SOCIETY WHILE OTHERS THINK IT IS SIMPLY A FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT.

DISCUSS BOTH VIEWS AND GIVE YOUR OWN OPINION.

Opinions are divided on whether music is just a method for entertaining, or whether it has an essential impact on society. While I understand why some people support the former view, I am still in favour of the latter.

Those who believe that music is simply a form of entertainment may have several arguments. From their point of view, there are many ways to entertain better than music, so music does not have major influences on them. People will underestimate the importance of music if they feel interested in sport. Another point is that some of us may not gain advantages such as relaxation, joy from music. This is the factor behind the reason why people ignore the positive role of music and assess it is just a form of entertainment.

Nevertheless, I still think that those who believe that music is essential in society for several reasons. Chief among these is that music has profound impacts on our mental health. It helps us relax and reduce the risk of stress. Furthermore, choosing appropriate types of music to listen to at different time in a day can improve memory and concentration. Looking at the second idea, music plays an important role in life because it offers chances for us to have a job related to this field. For instance, due to music, not only do musicians compose a lot of popular songs but also theaters can maintain their operation. This allows us to make a living and boost our life quality.

In conclusion, despite acknowledging why people think that music is normally a form of entertainment, I still hold the belief that it has enormous influences on our society.

The prompt paraphrase you presented is creative and connects the two public discussion points in a cohesive manner. You used an excellent / coherent presentation method that shows an understanding of the topic and a clear control of writing using cohesive devices. However, your opinion presentation is incorrect. You are not supposed to refer to a side to support since you you have not considered the discussion requirements yet. Rather, you should have done one of two things:

- Given a clear opinion that could be separate from the two given points of view
- Given a general statement that would have indicated a comparative point of view for both opinions ( ex. I would like to consider the merits of both sides before giving my opinion for each discussion topic.)

The reason for these 2 choices is that you are being asked to write a comparative + personal opinion essay. This is weakly referenced in your presentation as you did not properly develop the discussion points based on the 5 paragraph format. You opted to use the 5 paragraph format when you stated an opinion as a part of the thesis statement in paragraph 1. The format for the discussion paragraphs should have been:

Par. 1: Restatement + opinion
Par. 2: Fully developed discussion of the first point of view (topic sentence, reason for public opinion, example, additional supporting sentence (optional) transition sentence to the next point of view)

Par. 3: Content is the same as Par. 2 using the second topic
Par. 4: Detailed personal opinion that follows the content format for the previous 2 paragraphs
Par. 5: Summary conclusion that reiterates your opinion at the end

Your second paragraph combined 2 discussion points that needed to be considered separately based on formatting and C&C requirements. As such, this paragraph became under developed, lacking in both coherence and cohesiveness due to the badly discussed reason presentations. It does not have any real convincing elements included for either subject that could properly explain the public points of view to the examiner. Refer to the paragraph content as I mentioned above for specific discussion requirements for each paragraph.

The summary conclusion at the end that summarizes your discussion points as scored as a part of your overall scoring consideration. Properly restating the previous discussion in short form, adds to your TA, LR, GRA, and C&C score because it shows that you are capable of restating the full discussion in an alternative form (similar to, but different in presentation from the prompt restatement paragraph). That is why this is called a reverse paraphrase. It is just as important as the prompt restatement at the start due to its ability to further increase your final overall score.

The concluding paragraph you presented would have had a clearer presentation if you had divided the thoughts into at least 2 sentences. You created a run on sentence that focused only on your point of view, totally negating the prior discussion points presented in the original prompt. As there is no accurate restatement in this concluding summary, it cannot be considered properly developed and helpful to the closing of the opinion statement. In this manner, this section will lower your GRA and TA score rather than help to increase it.