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Task 2 · Two-part question · Work

Why people now change careers several times

The second question asks for a verdict. The 6.5 refuses to give one — the single most costly thing an otherwise competent answer can do.

The question

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task. Write about the following topic. Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words.

It is now common for people to change careers several times during their working lives. Why is this happening? Do you think it is a positive or a negative development?

A 250-word discursive essay — the half of the paper that carries two thirds of the marks. This prompt is original, written in the standard format for teaching purposes — it is not taken from any past paper.

What separates the three answers

The prompt demands a judgement: the 6.5 gives none, the 7.5 gives one and defends it, and the 9 gives one that depends on a distinction it had already drawn while answering the first half.

The three answers

Band 6.5

263 words (the task asks for at least 250)

The answer works. It addresses the task, the reader follows it, and the meaning survives — but ideas stay general, linking is mechanical, wording repeats, and small errors are visible throughout.

The answer

In the past, most people worked in the same job until their retirement, but now it is normal to change the career two or three times. There are different reasons for this and in my opinion it has advantages and disadvantages.

The first reason is the technology. Many jobs which existed twenty years ago are disappeared now4 because the computers and the machines can do them, so the workers must learn a new profession. For example, my uncle worked in a printing factory and when the factory closed he had to become a driver. Secondly, the young generation has different values. They do not want to do the same boring work for forty years, they want to develop themselves and to be happy in their job. Also it is easier now to study online, so a person can learn a new skill in the evening without leaving his current job.

On one hand, changing career is positive because people can find a work which they really like2 and the economy becomes more flexible. On the other hand, it is negative because every time a person start from zero, his salary will be lower3 and he will have less experience than his colleagues. For example a person who was a manager can become a junior employee again in the new field. Also some people feel stress because they do not have the stability.

In conclusion, people change their career because of the technology and because of the new values, and this development has both positive and negative sides for the workers and the society1.

What an examiner notices

  1. 1. Task response

    “this development has both positive and negative sides for the workers and the society”

    The question asked whether the writer considers it positive or negative. Ending on 'both' answers a question that was not set, and no amount of good content elsewhere recovers that.

  2. 2. Coherence and cohesion

    “On one hand, changing career is positive because people can find a work which they really like”

    The on-one-hand frame commits the essay to a balance it then cannot resolve. Structure chosen before the argument was decided.

  3. 3. Lexical resource

    “every time a person start from zero, his salary will be lower”

    'Start from zero' is a translation rather than an English idiom — 'start again at the bottom' is the natural form — and the verb is missing its inflection.

  4. 4. Grammatical range and accuracy

    “Many jobs which existed twenty years ago are disappeared now”

    'Disappear' is intransitive and cannot be passive. A single clear structural error of this kind, alongside the smaller agreement slips, is characteristic of the band.

One honest caveat

Band labels here describe what each piece of writing demonstrates against the four published assessment areas, paraphrased in plain language. They are teaching illustrations produced for this site, not official material, and no sample has been marked by a test provider. Real scripts are marked whole; two answers with the same label can still look quite different from each other, and nothing on this page can promise anyone a particular result.

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