IELTS writing task 2: TV or newspaper? neither? Internet

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Write about the following topic:

In many countries, very few young people read newspapers or follow the news on TV. What do you think are the causes of this?
What solutions can you suggest?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.

Internet impact on traditional media

It appears that young people nowadays are not so interested in reading newspapers or following the news on television due to many reasons. The introduction of Internet is one of the major contributor to this phenomena and our education system is the second one. I believe that by limiting the use of Internet and by reducing the amount of readings required by our education system, more and more young people will start reading newspapers and watch news on TV.

The advent of Internet has allowed many individuals to access any materials that one can think of for free, including those on newspapers, making people feel that there are no proper reasons to buy and read newspapers. Not to mention that one can always read any information online at any time, at any place while if one wants to read newspapers, one will have to buy it and carry it with him which can be quite inconvenient compared to simply using the Internet to read news. For example, if a certain person is in a hurry to go to work and he wants to read some news on the newspapers or watch them on TV on the way to work, he can always use laptop or any other electronic devices to satisfy those needs online.

As for our education system, it has become much more challenging than ever before. Some students find it necessary to even go to cram schools and sleep less than 6 hours per day to pass their tests. Most of the time, this is due to the fact that young people are required to read a plethora amount of materials. To aggravate this, books are written sometimes in a lengthy way even when it can be much more concise. All these factors, really demotivate young people to read newspapers or watch news on TV as they are exhausted already from studying. For instance, in Korea, some students even attempted to commit suicide because of the upcoming exams.

Based on the above analysis which indicates the increasing use of Internet and reading materials, young people should be stopped from utilizing the Internet and from studying excessively to encourage them to read newspapers and follow the news on TV.

Getting an 8 is my goal.

Peter, This is a pretty good essay, even though your opening paraphrase is not proper. The opening paraphrase is to be used to only prove that you understood the instructions given for the discussion for the essay. All you have to do is explain, in your own words, what the topic for discussion is, the purpose of the discussion, and how it is to be discussed. Here is a sample prompt for this essay:

There has been a decline in the interest of young adults in perusing newspapers or watching nightly news on television. There are a number of reasons that this has been happening. In this essay, I will discuss the causes of this situation and offer a viable solution or two in order to address the issue. The solutions proposed will be based on my personal knowledge and observations.

An insightful review of the way that I arranged the paraphrase will show you that I managed to say thing as the original prompt, but in a totally different manner. This type of presentation will garner an above average to perfect Task Accuracy score. Once you score well in the TA section, the rest of the scoring will follow on a similar scale.

One of the problems that you have in your essay is that you tend to write overly long sentences which turn into run-on presentations. It would be better to write a moderate length sentence instead. With 5 sentences per paragraph, you need to be able to make sure that you highlight your grammar skills in terms if sentence development, aside from creating coherent and cohesive paragraphs. The proper format, per paragraph is similar to this:

1. Topic sentence
2. Reason 1
3. Explanation
4. Example
5. Transition sentence

Proceed to use the same format for the 3 body paragraphs and you will find that your essay will pass the required criteria at a higher level. You really need a transition sentence between your paragraphs in order to prepare the reader for the change in the upcoming paragraph topic. That creates a more cohesive presentation of your discussion throughout the essay. This was specially necessary to connect paragraph 2 to paragraph 3. When you just hit the reader with a change in topic, you create undue stress on the reader and that will lower your score in the GRA and C&C sections.

Your concluding paragraph is inappropriate in format. Remember, the rule of thumb for a higher score is each paragraph should be 3-5 sentences long. That is the best way to increase your chances of hitting a higher band score. This overall essay though, in my opinion, would probably score a 6 at the most.