CD IELTS Prep
All band comparisons

Task 2 · Advantages and disadvantages · Consumer

Online shopping and the high street

An outweigh question on the decline of physical retail, where the band 9 answer argues that the real loss is not shopping at all.

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.

In many towns and cities, online retailers have taken a large share of the trade that once went to shops on the high street. Do the advantages of this shift 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 weighs convenience against shop closures; the 7.5 asks who is excluded; the 9 separates how people buy things from what a town centre is for, and answers each differently.

The three answers

Band 6.5

264 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, most of the people prefer to do their shopping on the internet instead of going to the shops in the town centre. Because of this, many high street shops are closing down. This essay will discuss the advantages and the disadvantages of this change.

There are many advantages of the online shopping. First of all, it is very convenient.3 The customers can order anything from their home at any time, and they do not need to travel to the town or to find the parking. Secondly, the prices are usually cheaper on the internet, because the online shops do not pay the expensive rent, and also it is very easy to compare the price of the different websites4. Furthermore, the choice is much bigger. In a normal shop there is a limited space, but on the internet the customers can find everything they want.

However, this change has also created the problems. The main problem is that many shops in the high street are closing, and the people who work there lose their job5. This is bad for the local economy. Another problem is that the town centres are becoming empty and unattractive, and some people say they are not safe anymore in the evening. Also, the old people who can not use the internet very well are having the difficulties, because their local shops are disappearing2.

In conclusion, the online shopping has the big advantages like the price, the choice and the convenience, but it has also the disadvantages for the town centres and the workers. Both sides have the strong arguments.1

What an examiner notices

  1. 1. Task response

    “Both sides have the strong arguments.”

    The final sentence of an outweigh essay is where the judgement belongs. This one observes that judging is difficult and stops, so the question set has not been answered.

  2. 2. Task response

    “the old people who can not use the internet very well are having the difficulties, because their local shops are disappearing”

    A specific and genuinely strong point, arriving last, given one sentence, and never connected to the convenience argument it directly qualifies.

  3. 3. Coherence and cohesion

    “There are many advantages of the online shopping. First of all, it is very convenient.”

    The first sentence carries no information and the second supplies only a label. The paragraph is organised by numbering rather than by any connection between the points.

  4. 4. Lexical resource

    “it is very easy to compare the price of the different websites”

    The comparison is attached to the wrong noun — prices are compared across websites, not the price of them — and 'the expensive rent' generalises with an article English does not use.

  5. 5. Grammatical range and accuracy

    “the people who work there lose their job”

    A singular 'job' shared among plural people, matched elsewhere by 'having the difficulties' and 'most of the people'. Number and article errors run through the whole answer without ever blocking it.

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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