Task 2 · Two-part question · Culture
Why traditional crafts are dying out
A two-part essay on disappearing handicrafts, where the band 9 answer separates keeping a craft on display from keeping it alive.
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.
Traditional crafts such as weaving, pottery and woodcarving are dying out in many parts of the world. Why is this happening? Do you think it is important to keep these skills alive?
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
All three blame cheap factory goods and the choices of young people, but only the 9 traces both to a single lost livelihood and uses that diagnosis to decide what keeping the skills alive would actually involve.
The three answers
Band 6.5
270 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, many people was making things by hand5, like cloth, pots and wooden furniture, but today these traditional crafts are disappearing in many countries. In this essay I will explain the reasons of this and give my opinion if we should protect them.
There are two main reasons why this is happening. The first reason is that the factory products are very cheap.3 A machine can make hundreds of plates in one hour, but a potter can make only few plates in one day, so the handmade things are very expensive and most of the customers do not want to buy them. The second reason is that young generation is not interested in these jobs. They prefer to work in the offices or in the IT companies, because the salary is more and the work is more comfortable4. Also, it takes many years to learn a craft properly.1
In my opinion, it is very important to preserve these skills. Firstly, the traditional crafts are the part of our culture and history. They show how our ancestors were living and what was important for them. If we lose them, our next generations will not know about their roots. Secondly, these crafts can attract the tourists, who like to buy the handmade souvenirs, so it can give the income to the villages.
In conclusion, the traditional crafts are disappearing because of cheap factory products and because young people are not interested. I believe the government should protect them by giving money to the craftsmen and opening the training centres2, so that this important part of our culture does not die.
What an examiner notices
1. Task response
“Also, it takes many years to learn a craft properly.”
Arguably the most important cause in the essay, and it is added in a single sentence after 'Also'. It is never connected to the young people's choice it helps to explain.
2. Task response
“I believe the government should protect them by giving money to the craftsmen and opening the training centres”
The question did not ask for solutions, and this one appears for the first time in the conclusion with no account of how it would work.
3. Coherence and cohesion
“The first reason is that the factory products are very cheap.”
The paragraph opens by counting its reasons and then labels each in turn. The structure is clear, but it is carried by the labels rather than by the ideas.
4. Lexical resource
“because the salary is more and the work is more comfortable”
'The salary is more' should be 'salaries are higher' or 'the pay is better'. 'More' does the work of several different words in this essay.
5. Grammatical range and accuracy
“many people was making things by hand”
A plural subject with a singular verb in the first line, and the past continuous where the simple past or 'used to' is needed. The same continuous returns in 'our ancestors were living'.
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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