IELTS Task 2 - Railways development or Roads development

Topic:

Governments should spend money on railways rather than roads.

To what extend do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Traffic infrastructures are essential parts in the development of countries. It is often argued that governments should invest more money in building railways instead of roads. In my opinion, improving the railroads system will bring a great deal of benefits to the countries because of three main reasons.

Firstly, trains are very efficient mediums of transportation for both goods and people. Trains can pull many carriages that can be used for delivering goods or carrying people. In addition, they run on rail tracks with little or no traffic jams. As a result, the fuel or energy is used efficiently and ultimately led to a reduction in cost for businesses and passengers.

Furthermore, trains can be advantageous to tourism. In some countries, railways can be built through forests or mountains. These rail tracks are hidden gems to the eyes of travelers. Not only do they provide breath-taking scenery but also peaceful moments. For instance, in Vietnam, there is a railroad that goes up to high mountains where passengers can touch the clouds and see the mountains.

Finally, trains can reduce the air pollution and prevent climate changes. It is estimated that cars and personal vehicles are responsible for one-fifth of greenhouse gas emission. Therefore, improving railways infrastructures and systems will encourage people to move over to trains as their main transportation method, thus reducing the CO2 emission.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that building and upgrading railroads are beneficial to the development of nations, because not only do they ensure a better and cleaner environment but also boost the growth of economics and tourism.

You did a great job.
It is a well-organized essay by the proper use of conjunctions(First, another reason, finally).
You deliver your ideas in a clear way. Therefore, your essay was clear, simple, and totally understandable.

On the contrary, you did not do a very good job on this essay because you did not immediately address the task requirement. The discussion requirement indicates that you must discuss the topic based on:

To what extend do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Your response to the question was:

In my opinion, improving the railroads system will bring a great deal of benefits to the countries because of three main reasons.

While the essay does require you to use your personal opinion to justify your reasons, you must first give a direct measured response to the question provided. That response is never placed in the concluding paragraph because the whole basis of the discussion relies on your direct response to the question. The TA score, which is based heavily on your response to the question, is judged in the prompt paraphrase with response section. It is never judged as the conclusion of the essay.

Rather than using conjunctions in the essay, it is better to offer topic sentences. That is because the conjunctions are only word fillers that do not add anything to the overall scoring consideration of your essay. However, immediate topic sentences work very well. A direct conversation is necessary because of the time limit on the writing task. These conjunctions are just word fillers that do not help to move your discussion along. There is no need to count out the reasons once you have stated it as part of the introduction / paraphrase. There is after all a 3 maximum body for the paragraphs anyway.

What will happen now is that you will receive TA deductions based on the improper response to the prompt. Since the response is only partially related to the task, you will receive a TA score of around 5 because you only partially addressed the task. Like I mentioned before, the direct measured response is required.

In addition to that, you gave your measured response in the conclusion of the essay. This is an improper action to take because the conclusion is always used as a summary of the body of paragraphs discussion. It is also known as a reverse paraphrase because of this. This is an open ended essay, which means there is no true conclusion and as such, it will again receive a mark down due to it being an incomplete presentation.