CD IELTS Prep
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Task 2 · Advantages and disadvantages · Globalisation

Mass tourism in developing economies

An outweigh question on tourism-led development, where the band 9 answer makes the whole judgement turn on who owns the hotel.

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.

Many developing countries have built their economies around large-scale international tourism. Do the advantages of this approach outweigh the disadvantages?

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 6.5 knows tourism brings money and jobs and stops there; the 7.5 asks what kind of jobs; the 9 asks where the money ends up, and answers the question differently depending on the answer.

The three answers

Band 6.5

258 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

Nowadays, many developing countries are depending on the international tourism for the development of their economy. Some people think this is a good thing but other people disagree. In this essay I will discuss both the advantages and the disadvantages of this situation.1

On the one hand, tourism brings many benefits for these countries.3 Firstly, it creates a lot of the jobs for the local people, for example in the hotels, the restaurants and the transport. Because of this, the unemployment rate become lower and the standard of living is improved. Secondly, the government can earn the foreign currency from the tourists, and they can use this money for building the schools, the hospitals and the roads. Moreover, the tourism also helps to protect the traditional culture, because the tourists want to see the local dances and the handicrafts2.

On the other hand, there are some serious disadvantages. Firstly, the tourism can damage the environment very badly. The construction of the big hotels destroy the beaches and the forests5, and the tourists produce a lot of garbage. Secondly, the local people sometimes can not afford the houses anymore, because the prices become very high in the tourist areas. In addition, the culture can be affected in the negative way, because the young people copy the behaviour of the foreigners.

In conclusion, the international tourism has the important advantages like the jobs and the money, but it also has the serious disadvantages like the pollution and the high prices4. Both of them are very important for the developing countries.

What an examiner notices

  1. 1. Task response

    “In this essay I will discuss both the advantages and the disadvantages of this situation.”

    The prompt asks whether one side outweighs the other. This sets a different task, and the closing line — that both are very important — completes the substitution.

  2. 2. Task response

    “the tourism also helps to protect the traditional culture, because the tourists want to see the local dances and the handicrafts”

    The next paragraph argues that tourism damages the same culture. The contradiction goes unnoticed because nothing in the essay is ever set against anything else.

  3. 3. Coherence and cohesion

    “On the one hand, tourism brings many benefits for these countries.”

    The two body paragraphs are the same paragraph with the sign flipped — On the one hand and On the other hand, Firstly and Firstly, Secondly and Secondly. Symmetry is substituting for comparison.

  4. 4. Lexical resource

    “the serious disadvantages like the pollution and the high prices”

    'Advantages' and 'disadvantages' occur six times, with 'important' and 'serious' carrying the evaluation. There is no vocabulary for degree, so nothing can be shown to matter more than anything else.

  5. 5. Grammatical range and accuracy

    “The construction of the big hotels destroy the beaches and the forests”

    The verb agrees with the nearest noun rather than with 'construction'. The identical slip appears in 'the unemployment rate become lower'.

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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