IELTS Writing Task 2 Essay: Increasing crime levels
IELTS Writing Task 2 Sample increasing crime levels

IELTS Writing Task 2 Essay: Increasing crime levels

It is true that the crime rate has been rising, especially in larger cities. Many factors are at the root of this serious issue. However, several researches have shown that this is mainly related to educational aspects and information. Thus, governments should tackle crime by improving educational system.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Education and information are both elements to take into account when it comes to offence. Schools and universities play a crucial role in affecting one’s behaviour as an individual and should be the places, in tandem with home, where people learn what is right and wrong and the effects of one’s behaviour on our society. For this reason, the lack of educational and preventative initiatives concerning crime may result in an increase in offences. For instance, according to several university studies, pupils attending schools where workshops about (1) civil rights and justice take place are less likely to become vandalists or robbers in the future.

Therefore, governments should promote crime-related educational activities in state schools (2). It would be also necessary to encourage companies by financial incentives to allow workers to attend training courses connected with bribery, fraud and corporate crime. Learning more about crime and the related punishments can be seen as one of the most powerful preventative measures against offence. Take the private companies operating in UK. Most employers there make sure that (3) their staff are well educated (4) about preventative measures at fighting crime and the consequences of committing offence.

To sum up, offence (5), one of the main issues in our society, is increasing in today’s world. The lack of an efficient educational system may represent one of the most significant causes of this phenomenon. Yet, governments can take action to combat crime by encouraging both institutions and enterprises to develop crime-related education programs.

297 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. workshops on— ‘A workshop on something’ would be more inline with the overall highly-academical style used in the text. ‘About’ sounds a bit too colloquial here.
  2. Although not a mistake per se, this sentence would make more sentence as the last one in the previous paragraph. It would do well in summing up the ideas mentioned there.
    If you choose to move it to the previous paragraph, then you would need a new introductory sentence for this one.
  3. Take the private companies operating in UK. Most employers there make sure that — ‘that’ can be omitted here — it is a so-called ‘complementiser’. It is by no means a mistake, however I would recommend cutting down on words that do not contribute anything to the sentence. Concise writing, even though it doesn’t impact your exam mark greatly, is a nice practice to make your text more reader-friendly.
  4. their staff are well-educated — ‘well-educated’ should take a hyphen here. Think of it this way — their staff is not both physically healthy(‘well’) and professionally knowledgeable(‘educated’). They are sufficiently educated in their field of expertise.
  5. Offence. You have used the word five times throughout the essay, either come up with a synonym or restructure the phrase to avoid repeating it. Some synonyms from the top of my head:  wrongdoing, misdeed, delinquency. All have different shades of meaning, but the general notions remains the same. It is important to use synonyms for words that are used often.

This is a high-quality piece of writing. The structure is well-defined, grammar and vocabular structures are nearly impeccable and diverse. Occasional few inaccuracies do not stand in the way of understanding.