IELTS Writing Task 2 Essay: Practical skills and knowledge - EngExam.info

IELTS Writing Task 2 Essay: Practical skills and knowledge

In the modern world, more and more emphasis is being placed on acquisition of practical skills rather than knowledge from text books of other sources.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this trend.

Nowadays, it is common belief that people should be more concerned about practical skills rather than theoretical ones. Others disagree with this assumption. This essay will discuss the main positive and negative aspects of focusing on practise (1) instead of theory.

Generally speaking, acquiring practical skills has become essential for every job seeker. Therefore, the majority of job interviewers require from their candidates some technical experience to cover a certain position. In addition to this, internships and traineeships play a crucial role in preparing recent graduates for working life. For instance, the European program Erasmus provides a wide range of options for students aimed at gaining work experience to let them have access to the job market in an easier and faster way.

On the other hand, in-depth theoretical knowledge about the field of activity in which a potential or current worker is involved is important: without it, it is even unlikely to set objectives and targets for a company. Moreover, possessing theoretical knowledge may also affect the amount of money a worker can earn. An evidence of this can be given by the fact that having a qualification, such as a Bachelor’s Degree or a certain certificate, is almost always a requirement for doing white collar jobs (2), which are, in most cases, those with the highest salaries.

To sum up, many individuals consider acquiring practical experience more necessary than developing knowledge (3) about principles or rules. This essay discussed the main advantages and drawbacks of this statement. Whether practise plays a more vital role than theory or not, it is clear that they are both significant in modern life.   

268 words

The commentaries are marked in brackets with number (*). The numbered commentaries are found below. The part in italics is taken from the text, the word underlined is the suggested correction. Words in (brackets) are the suggested addition to the original phrase or sentence.

  1. Practice— ‘practise’ is a verb, the noun is spelled with letter c — ‘practice’. See this list of words that are easy to misspell.
  2. Whitecollar —’ white-collar’ is a compound adjective and should be hyphenated
  3. Knowledge — consider finding a synonym for knowledge, such as ‘competence’, ‘expertise’ or something similar in meaning

This essay is superb. The only downside it has is the occasional vocabulary inaccuracies that should be easy to avoid with proof-reading the writing. Never underestimate the importance of proofreading.