IELTS Task 2 Band 6.5 Sample: Are Entertainers Paid Too Much? Off-Topic Points (Part 2 of 3): Coherence, Vocabulary, Grammar and the Major Problems

3. Why this essay got 6.5: the four criteria one by one (continued)

Coherence & Cohesion 6: unclear references and no bridge between the two questions

There are three main CC problems:

• Unclear references: in the introduction, “I totally agree with this because it impacts negatively on society”, what does “it” refer to? The celebrities? The high pay? The phenomenon in general? In the first body paragraph, “The main reason is that it distorts the values toward lives”, what is “it” this time? The reader has to guess.
• No link between the two questions: the Q1 paragraph ends with “lower labor productivity”, and the Q2 paragraph starts straight away with “besides entertainers, two types of jobs should be highly paid”. Logically, nothing carries the reader from one to the other.
• A misused linker: “In other words, it is readily apparent that it is fair for those work in dangerous jobs to get a higher payment for the purpose of motivating people…” This sentence is not saying the same thing in other words; it introduces a new reason (motivating people to keep doing the job). It needs something like “This is also important because…”.

The paraphrase in the introduction also has a problem. The question says “paid too much money”, which is an opinion. I rewrote it as “celebrities on entertainment industries gain extremely high payment”, which is a fact. Then I said “I totally agree with this”, which means agreeing with a fact rather than with an opinion. When you paraphrase the question, an opinion has to stay an opinion. Do not turn it into a fact.

Lexical Resource 7 and GRA 7: the sentences and vocabulary are already at Band 7

Scoring 7 in both LR and GRA shows that the basic language skills were already solid. “distorts the values”, “overemphasize appearance”, “extravagant lifestyle”, “academic qualification” and “dedication to the community” are all natural collocations, and the grammar has variety: relative clauses, participle clauses, “for the purpose of”, “due to” and so on.

4. The major problems in this essay

These three problems have one thing in common: while writing, I was looking for “things related to the topic” rather than “things that answer the question”. The negative influence of celebrities is related to celebrities; doctors, lawyers and police officers are related to high pay. But they do not necessarily answer the question that was actually asked. I think this is the easiest trap to fall into with two-question essays.

How do you avoid it? The most effective method I have found is to rewrite the question as a direct question when planning, and then check whether each reason answers it. For this prompt, the Q1 question is “Do entertainers earn unreasonably large amounts of money?”, so each reason has to fit “Yes, because ___”. If you fill in “celebrities make people care too much about appearance”, you get “Yes, because celebrities make people care too much about appearance”, and you will immediately notice that the sentence sounds odd: the cause and effect do not connect. This takes only one extra minute at the planning stage, and it catches most off-topic reasons.

The conclusion: it answers both questions, but stays on the surface like the body

The structure of the conclusion is right: it first restates the Q1 position (“entertainers should not be paid too much money”) and then answers Q2 (highly qualified and dangerous jobs should be well paid). But the Q1 reason is written as “it results in negative consequences to the public”, which is very general. It squeezes the two already off-topic body reasons into an even vaguer sentence. The Q2 part, “workers with high academic qualifications and work in dangerous environment”, is also grammatically incomplete (it should be “workers who have high academic qualifications or work in dangerous environments”), and “and” merges the two types of jobs into one, so it now means “jobs that need high qualifications and are also dangerous”.

A conclusion does not need anything new, but it should be more precise than the body, not vaguer. If the body had been changed to “pay is out of proportion to contribution”, the conclusion could simply say “because their pay far exceeds their contribution to society”, and Q1 would be wrapped up cleanly in one line.

Why did my other two-question essays get a higher TR?

Looking through my score records, I noticed something interesting. The day before this essay (13 June), I wrote Essay 23, another two-question essay (“Why do some people choose to be self-employed, and what are the disadvantages?”), and got TR 7–8. Two weeks later (29 June), I wrote Essay 41 (“Why do people want to own their home, and is this positive or negative?”), and the four scores were 8, 8, 7 and 8. Same question type, roughly the same period, yet TR differed by one to two bands.

My reading is this: the self-employment and home-ownership questions ask for “reasons” and “positive or negative”, so as long as the reasons are relevant, it is hard to go off-topic. The entertainers question, however, has a hidden core condition in Q1: “too much”. The reasons have to address “unreasonably much”; being related to entertainers is not enough. The more a question contains words of degree or comparison (too much, more important, outweigh), the more carefully you need to check that your reasons hit that degree. When you analyse the question, I recommend circling words like these.

Your position does not have to be “completely agree”

I wrote “I totally agree”, but this question actually suits partial agreement, because the other side has strong arguments: entertainers’ income is set by the market, the box-office and advertising revenue they bring in may be far higher than what they are paid, and athletes have short careers, so high earnings are partly compensation. If you ignore all of this, the examiner may feel the argument is too one-sided.

My suggestion: even if you choose to agree, you can add a one-sentence concession in the Q1 paragraph, for example “Admittedly, top entertainers generate huge profits for their studios and sponsors, and their careers can be short. However, …”. Acknowledge the other side’s reason first, then explain why you still think the pay is too high. This sentence does not weaken your position; it actually makes the TR requirement of “a clear position, fully supported” easier to meet. But keep the concession to one sentence. The body of the paragraph should still be your own reasons.