IELTS opinion essay: a band 6.5 and a band 8 answer to the same question

An opinion essay is the Task 2 type where the question asks you to agree or disagree. It is the type most candidates feel safest with, and the type where the difference between 6.5 and 8 is easiest to show, because both essays below answer the same question, take the same position and use roughly the same ideas. What separates them is not the ideas. It is how far each one is developed, how precisely it is worded, and how much the reader has to work.

The criteria are explained in plain words in what band 7 requires. This article assumes them and goes straight to the essays.

The question

Some people believe that children should be taught how to manage money at school. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

The question has one instruction: give your position and support it. It does not ask you to discuss both sides. An essay that spends a paragraph on each side and decides at the end has answered a different question — the discuss-both-views essay — and Task Response caps it in the 6 range.

The band 6.5 essay

Nowadays, money is very important in our life. Some people think that schools should teach children how to manage their money. I completely agree with this opinion because it is useful for children's future.

Firstly, children who learn about money at school will be able to manage their money when they are adults. For example, they will know how to make a budget and how to save money for the future. This is very important because many adults have problems with debt, and if they learned about money when they were young they would not have these problems. Moreover, learning about money helps children to understand the value of things and they will not waste money on things which are not necessary.

Secondly, not all parents can teach their children about money. Some parents do not have good knowledge about this topic, and some parents are too busy to teach their children. Therefore, the school is the best place to learn about money because all children go to school. In addition, teachers are professionals and they know how to explain difficult topics to children.

However, some people argue that schools already have too many subjects and there is no time for another one. Although this is true, I believe that money management is more important than some other subjects, so schools should find time for it.

In conclusion, I strongly agree that children should learn how to manage money at school because it will help them in their future life and because some parents cannot teach them. Governments should make this subject compulsory in all schools.

(266 words)

The band 8 essay

Financial habits are formed early and are expensive to unlearn, yet most people acquire them by trial and error rather than by instruction. I agree that schools should teach children to manage money, and I would go further: the subject deserves the same status as basic arithmetic, because the cost of leaving it to chance falls on precisely the children whose families can least afford it.

The strongest argument is that money management is a skill, not a body of knowledge, and skills need practice under supervision. A twelve-year-old who has run a classroom budget for a term, recorded where the money went and had to explain a shortfall has done something no lecture on saving can replicate. Adults who struggle with debt rarely lack information about interest rates; what they lack is the habit of asking, before a purchase, what it will displace. That habit is learned by doing, and school is the only place where every child can be made to do it.

The second argument concerns fairness. Children whose parents budget carefully absorb the practice at home, while those whose parents are overstretched or in debt learn the opposite lessons just as thoroughly. If the subject is left to families, it reproduces the inequality it could correct. A school curriculum is the one mechanism that reaches both groups, and it reaches them before their first credit card rather than after.

The usual objection, that the timetable is already full, is really an argument about priorities. Few topics taught in the final years of school will be used weekly for the rest of a pupil's life; managing money will be.

In short, schools should teach money management because it is a practised skill rather than a fact to be told, and because the alternative leaves the children who most need it with the least chance of learning it.

(310 words)

The grades

Task Response: 6 against 8

The 6.5 essay states a clear position and keeps it, which is why it is not a 5. What holds it at 6 is that every point is asserted rather than developed. "They will know how to make a budget and how to save money" is the whole of the first argument; the sentence that follows ("many adults have problems with debt") repeats the claim at a larger scale rather than explaining it. The descriptors call this a position that is "relevant" but with ideas that "may be insufficiently developed", and a 6 is exactly where that lands.

The 8 essay develops each argument until it has a mechanism. Money management is "a skill, not a body of knowledge, and skills need practice"; the classroom-budget example shows what practice means; the debt sentence explains why information alone fails. The fairness paragraph does the same: it names who learns at home, who learns the opposite, and what a curriculum changes. That is what "well developed" looks like. The essay also handles the objection in two sentences without drifting into a discussion of both sides, which keeps the position sharp.

Coherence and Cohesion: 7 against 8

The 6.5 essay is well organised: one idea per paragraph, a clear conclusion, and cohesive devices that are used correctly. The reason it is a 7 and not higher is mechanical linking: "Firstly", "Moreover", "Secondly", "In addition", "Therefore", "However", "In conclusion", each at the start of a sentence. The descriptors at 7 accept devices used "with some under/over-use"; this is the over-use.

The 8 essay links by meaning. "The strongest argument is", "The second argument concerns fairness", "The usual objection" tell the reader the structure without a stock connective, and sentences inside paragraphs are joined by reference ("That habit", "it reproduces the inequality") rather than by "moreover". The reader never works to follow it.

Lexical Resource: 6 against 8

The 6.5 essay's vocabulary is adequate and almost error-free, and that is the ceiling: "very important" appears twice, and "money" recurs in almost every sentence with the same few verbs around it (manage, learn about, save). There is no attempt at less common vocabulary, and "good knowledge about this topic" is the kind of phrase that shows the limit of the range.

The 8 essay uses precise, natural collocations without reaching for rare words: "formed early and are expensive to unlearn", "acquire them by trial and error", "overstretched", "reproduces the inequality it could correct", "what it will displace". None of these is decorative; each says something the plain alternative would not. That is the difference between "sufficient" and "wide" range in the descriptors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: 7 against 8

The 6.5 essay is accurate and uses a mix of simple and complex sentences (a conditional, a concession with "Although"). It is a 7 because the range is narrow: most sentences are subject, verb, object, with a clause added by "because" or "and". Nothing is wrong; little is varied.

The 8 essay uses cleft structures ("what they lack is the habit"), fronted contrast ("Children whose parents budget carefully..., while those whose..."), a parenthetical ("and I would go further"), and reduced clauses, all without error. The descriptors at 8 ask for "a wide range of structures" with "the majority of sentences error-free"; this essay meets both.

What the 6.5 writer should change

Not the ideas. The two essays share them. Three changes, in order of the band they buy:

1. Develop each argument until it explains a mechanism. After every claim, write the sentence that says how or why it works, with one concrete case — what kinds of support an examiner can actually use settles what counts as one. If the next sentence only repeats the claim in other words, delete it.
2. Replace sentence-initial connectives with references. "This habit", "that objection", "the second reason" carry the reader; "Moreover" only announces that another sentence is coming.
3. Say each key phrase once. When you notice "very important" or "manage their money" appearing for the second time, the repetition is a sign that the sentence has nothing new in it, and it is the sentence, not the phrase, that needs work.

A graded rewrite of the same prompt, with the criteria scored separately each time — plans with AI-graded Writing do exactly this — is the fastest way to see which of the three has moved. Ideas rarely need to change between a 6.5 and an 8; the sentences do.