In this post: Why "outweigh" asks for a judgement rather than a list, my original Band 6.5 essay with its score card, and why Task Response stopped at 6.
Band 6.5 Sample: Driverless Vehicles · 3 parts
- 1. Question type and original essay (you are here)
- 2. Criteria and the missing weighing
- 3. Rewrites, frames and self-check
✦ In this post
I submitted this Task 2 essay for marking on 1 June 2024 (Essay 15). The question is the driverless vehicles task from Cambridge IELTS 16, Test 4. According to my notes, I wrote it from 16:25 to 16:59, about 34 minutes, and the essay itself is 297 words. The scores were TR 6, CC 6, LR 7 and GRA 7, for an overall 6.5.
This spread of scores is very typical: vocabulary and grammar had already reached 7, but answering the question and organising the essay were stuck at 6. Several of my essays from that period were in the same state: the English looked fine, yet the overall score would not move. Looking back at this one, the answer is actually clear: an Outweigh question wants a comparison, and I only gave a list.
1. The question and its type: Outweigh asks for a judgement, not a list
In short, the question says: in the future, all cars, buses and trucks will be driverless, and everyone inside them will just be a passenger. Do you think the advantages of driverless vehicles outweigh the disadvantages?
This is a classic Outweigh question, asking “Do you think the advantages … outweigh the disadvantages?”. The big difference from “Discuss the advantages and disadvantages” is that the latter asks you to explain both sides clearly, while the former asks you to make a judgement and prove which side weighs more. So the core of an Outweigh essay is not “what are the advantages and what are the disadvantages”, but “why do these advantages matter more than those disadvantages”.
| Question type | Key words in the question | Job of the body paragraphs | Job of the conclusion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advantages/Disadvantages + opinion | Discuss the advantages and disadvantages… | Present the advantages and the disadvantages at roughly equal length | Say whether, overall, you think it is good or bad |
| Outweigh | Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? | Present both sides and explain which weighs more, and why | Give the reason for your judgement, often with a recommendation |
When I organised my notes on Outweigh structure, I wrote: “If the question only asks you to discuss pros and cons, write four paragraphs with two points each. If it asks whether the advantages or the disadvantages are greater, write five paragraphs: two on the good side and one on the bad side.” But when I wrote this essay, I actually used four paragraphs with two advantages and two disadvantages, which means I treated an Outweigh question as an ordinary pros-and-cons question.
2. Score card and the original essay
The four scores average 6.5, so the overall is 6.5. Here is the version I submitted for marking, unedited:
As submitted (unedited, all mistakes kept)
Individuals have different opinions regarding whether the merits of driverless vehicles exceed the demerits. I strongly believe that the benefits of vehicles without drivers overtake the drawbacks, and the reasons will be elaborated on as follows.
There are several reasons why driverless automobiles seem to be more advantageous. The main reason is that driverless vehicles are more economical, lowering expenditure on companies or the authorities. The spending on drivers and training courses, which always costs thousands of money, is good example of this matter. By using driverless vehicles, companies can undeniably lower their budget and further increase their revenue. Another keep benefit is that driverless vehicles are environmentally friendly transportation since most of those cars are driven by electricity rather than traditional fuels. To put it another way, it is readily apparent that driving driverless cars reduces the usage of traditional energy likes coal or gas, which threatens our environment; therefore, it is wise to use driverless cars because they are eco-friendly.
Those opposed to the usage of driverless vehicles due to the following two reasons. First and foremost, the usage of those cars results in the decrease in jobs vacancies, leading to high unemployment rate in related industries. In other words, when driverless vehicles replace the traditional ones, those drivers will definitely lose their jobs. Secondly, the concern of road safety will increase simultaneously if the driverless vehicles are used on the roads. For instance, car accidents may happen easily without the supervision by humans.
In conclusion, driverless vehicles have both positives and negatives. On balance, it is my opinion that the advantages of driverless vehicles surpass the disadvantages because they are economical and environmentally friendly, as I feel that saving money and energy is essential for achieving long-term success in sustainable development in related industries.
3. Why this essay got a 6.5: criterion by criterion
What follows is my own analysis against the public IELTS band descriptors. Judging from TR and CC at 6 and LR and GRA at 7, the marks were lost mainly on argument and organisation, not on the language itself.
| Criterion | Score | Key points of the descriptor (paraphrased) | Evidence in this essay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Task Response | 6 | Band 6: addresses the task, but some parts more fully than others; a relevant position, but conclusions may be unclear or repetitive; ideas not fully developed. | Two advantages and two disadvantages, but never an explanation of why the advantages weigh more; only two sentences on safety; the conclusion just repeats the advantages. |
| Coherence & Cohesion | 6 | Band 6: arranges information coherently overall, but cohesive devices are mechanical or imprecise; paragraphing is not always logical. | An even four-paragraph split for a question that needs an outweigh judgement; templated First and foremost / Secondly / To put it another way / In other words; the first sentence of paragraph three has no main verb. |
| Lexical Resource | 7 | Band 7: uses less common vocabulary with awareness of collocation, with occasional errors in word choice and spelling. | economical, expenditure, eco-friendly and unemployment rate are used appropriately; errors: keep benefit, thousands of money, likes coal, jobs vacancies, overtake the drawbacks. |
| Grammatical Range & Accuracy | 7 | Band 7: a variety of complex structures, many error-free sentences, occasional errors. | Non-defining relative clauses, semicolons, participle clauses; errors: is good example (missing article), Those opposed … due to … (no main verb). |
Task Response 6: a position, but no proof of it
The position in this essay is very clear: the introduction says “I strongly believe that the benefits … overtake the drawbacks”, and the conclusion says “the advantages … surpass the disadvantages”. A clear position is good, but the Band 6 TR descriptor contains a key phrase: the position is relevant, but “conclusions may become unclear or repetitive”. My conclusion is the repetitive kind: it simply restates the two advantages and never responds to the disadvantages raised in paragraph three.
More specifically, in paragraph three I wrote two disadvantages: fewer jobs and road-safety concerns. Once written, they just sit there. They are not rebutted, not played down and not compared with the advantages. When the reader reaches the conclusion’s claim that the advantages are greater, the natural question is: why? Do unemployment and accidents not matter? The essay never answers that question.
Worse, safety is actually one of the biggest controversies around driverless cars. I gave it a single example sentence, “car accidents may happen easily without the supervision by humans”, which means I raised a heavy counter-argument myself and then left it alone. In an Outweigh essay that is very risky: the heavier the disadvantage you raise, the more you need to explain why it still does not outweigh the advantages.
Putting the public descriptors for Band 6 and Band 7 side by side makes the difference clearer:
| TR aspect | What Band 6 looks like | What Band 7 looks like | Where this essay is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Addressing the task | All parts are addressed, but some are thin | All parts are addressed | Both advantages and disadvantages are there, but the “do they outweigh” judgement is never argued |
| Position | Relevant, but conclusions unclear or repetitive | A clear position throughout | The position is clear, but the conclusion only repeats the advantages |
| Developing ideas | Some main ideas are inadequately developed | Main ideas are extended and supported, though there may be a tendency to over-generalise | Safety is dismissed in two sentences; the environmental argument has a broken chain of cause and effect |
So this essay was actually not far from TR 7: the position was already clear, and if the conclusion stopped merely repeating itself and the disadvantages were dealt with, it had a good chance of moving up. That is why, when I later rewrote it, I hardly changed the arguments at all; I only changed the structure and the disadvantages paragraph.
Continue reading · Part 2 of 3
IELTS Notes in English · Band Score Samples (post 9 of 19)
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✦ Target Your Future
Some days you practise for hours and the score still does not move. I hope these notes remind you that the setbacks are part of the road: every recording you replayed, every essay you rewrote and every sentence you finally dared to say is progress you have already made.
I wrote this down so the next person can take fewer detours. You do not have to follow my method exactly. Find a rhythm that works for you, rest when you need to, and come back for the next small step.
I hope what you take away is more than a number on a score report: a little more confidence in yourself, and the courage to step a bit closer to the world.
— Ting
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