IELTS Opinion Essay Writing Task: "Prevention is better than cure".

Prompt:

"Prevention is better than cure."

Researching and treating diseases is too costly so it would be better to invest in preventive measures.
To what extent do you agree?

In the current climate where our health is seemingly on the line, both preventive measures and finding possible cures are equally important. I agree to a certain extent that preventive measures are important and should be enforced to everyone to minimize the possibility of getting sick, however, I also believe that investing in finding the proper cure is just as important.

Proper preventive measures also stem from extensive research through understanding how the diseases and viruses work and whether they will regenerate into something worse in the future. With the COVID-19 pandemic on the rise, vaccines are one of the best preventive measures for it, but in developing those vaccines, a lot of resources were needed; perhaps, as much resources it would need to find a cure.

From my friends and family's experiences, terminal diseases such as cancer are difficult to detect and prevent. Some of my cancer-ridden friends and family don't even know they had it until the symptoms were felt. It is difficult to prevent something you didn't know you had, especially when diseases like cancer don't really care whether you exercise every day or drink alcohol every night. Because of this, it is just as important to invest in finding cures for diseases, especially when they are undetectable by the naked eye.

In the end, governments and health organizations should invest in both preventive measures and finding cures for diseases. Viruses and diseases will continually evolve, as they should. It is our job to continuously be alert to prevent them, but when the front lines of prevention have been infiltrated, our healthcare system should still be adept in providing the proper cure.

Right thought, wrong idea presentation. The more accurate presentation would have been; "I agree TO the extent that..." since you are representing a degree of agreement. The idea is to present the end of your agreement with the topic. There is no need to represent the reason for your disagreement since you are asked for the measure of your agreement or disagreement. Pick one of the two discussion choices to represent in the essay. This is still a single opinion essay rather than a comparative discussion.


You are not being asked to present a solution to a perceived problem in the discussion instruction so this sentence is a total waste of word count and discussion space. It will not receive a score and instead, will lower your TA score due to a change in your discussion slant from the original.

Try to focus on only aspect of the discussion. Since you already agreed that the prevention is more important, then focus on that discussion alone. Do not contradict yourself in the discussion by agreeing with both sides. It is either you agree the cure is more important or the research is more important. Either agree or disagree. Create a clear opinion for yourself of risk being scored based on the lack of a clear, one sided opinion.

@Holt

I initially thought I could agree with both ("preventive measures and proper cure are both equally important"), but it does seem like I'm not confident enough to pick a side. I'll make sure to keep this in mind. Thank you so much for the feedback!