Pros and cons of taking year off and traveling as a backpacker or working in a small company; IELTS2

Thanks everyone for editing my writing. I hope I can achieve a better result after all of your helps.

Writing Question:

It is becoming increasingly popular to have a year off between finishing school and going to university. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?

My writing:

Travel or work in a gap year between college and university is a new trend in the society. Some said this idea was good for teenagers to have a relaxing year while others argued the financial burden caused. This essay covers both pros, cons and will give personal point of view at the end.

The gap year is the last chance for teenagers to think about their future. Studying in a university is a step before being an adult. Through traveling or working, they will be mature. As they are experiencing lives away from home, they take the responsibility of themselves and manage the whole year journey alone. Hereafter, they will understand the society by the solid experience. With such mature mind, they will eventually realize the importance of studying and be more responsible to their own lives.

Despite the advantages associated with the gap year, there is not many families can financially support their children for it. If the teenagers insist to have year free, a financial burden and damage to the family relationship would be caused. Nevertheless, some teenagers tend to be abandon during the gap year by watching television and staying at home all days long. This is a meaningless holiday. In some extreme cases, the university may not agree to take the year gap. The teenagers may put themselves at risk to lose the university offer.

In short, a meaningful gap year is governed by the choice of teenagers. How they plan and execute the long holiday will certainly affect the result of it. Personally, I strongly advise teenagers to take a meaningful gap year by traveling as backpacker or working in a small company to gain experience.

Hi,

I believe the opinion should be given in the beginning to strengthen your arguments. You can contrast pros and cons and support your argument

Also, there are some grammatical errors like: there are (is ) not many families.....which ....can...

Hi Yon, I would like to focus on your introduction and conclusion paragraph. I hope you can find my feedback is helpful towards your writing development, especially in IELTS writing task 2. You can see the detailed descriptions of them below.

1st paragraph (introduction):
- Some said this idea was good for teenagers to have... ("Good" is not suggested to be used in IELTS essay. The level of that word is really low. You are not going to achieve a high band score if you still use some basic vocabularies. There are many intermediate or advanced words to replace "good", such as amazing, marvelous, awesome, outstanding, remarkable, valuable, and many others.)

- Some said this idea was good for teenagers to have a relaxing year while others argued the financial burden caused.(do not let the reader or examiner questioning your essay. I assume the red one is advantage, and the blue one is disadvantage. But, the red one seems to simplistic. If you say it was "good", what is/ what are the goodness of that? you need to clearly mention the same thing like your disadvantage point. It was clear that it is about financial burden.)

- This essay covers both pros, cons and will give personal point of view at the end. (pros and cons are abbreviations from Latin word pro et contra, the same case as e.g. or i.e. You need to avoid using them in academic essay. It makes your essay looks informal. I would like to suggest to use "arguments for and against / strength and weakness / positive and negative / many other options that you can browse or read by yourself)

4th paragraph (conclusion):
- In shortIn conclusion , a meaningful gap year... ("in short" was not appropriate I guess. It is the same as "in brief" and it would not point any clear conclusions.)

- I have no further corrections. I think that the rest of the conclusion paragraph was okay. Perhaps, paraphrasing the thesis statement from your introduction would be better.

There you have it Yon, I hope you can follow through my feedback above. Good luck for the next practice :)

Hi Yon, I have a comment on your introduction paragraph as following:

In my opinion, There is no thesis statement in this essay. I see only Hook , paraphrasing and outline sentences. You need to disclose your main point that which one is more advantage or both of them are advantage.

Travel or work in a gap year between college and university is a new trend in the society. Some said this idea was good for teenagers to have a relaxing year while others argued the financial burden caused [The principal benefit is that ......and this outweighs the main drawbacks of...... ] . This essay covers both pros, cons and will give personal point of view at the end.

there isare not many families can financially support their children for it.

If the teenagers insist to have a year free, ...

Hi Yon,
My English is not very well. I am still learning now.
I can just correct some small mistakes for you.
I help we can learn from each other and make progress both us.

Keely

Thanks everyone's wonderful help and advice!

Sure I will write more and hope to recive your comments and advice too.