Band 7.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 7.0 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-02

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The chart below shows what Anthropology graduates from one university did after finishing their undergraduate degree course. The table shows the salaries of the anthropologists in work after five years.

Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparison where relevant.

Student answer (Band 7.0)

The health hazards associated with smoking and tobacco usage are beyond scientific dispute. Tobacco consumption remains one of the leading preventable causes of premature death worldwide, directly contributing to fatal medical conditions such as lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and chronic respiratory disorders. In light of these devastating consequences, an increasing number of public health advocates argue that governments should institute a complete legislative ban on the sale and consumption of smoking products. While I strongly agree that aggressive policy interventions are required to suppress tobacco use, I disagree with the proposal to make smoking entirely illegal, as such an absolute prohibition would be practical, economic, and social folly.

On the one hand, the arguments in favor of outlawing smoking stem from a legitimate desire to protect public welfare and alleviate strain on healthcare institutions. First and foremost, smoking not only destroys the health of active consumers but also poses severe involuntary risks to non-smokers via secondhand smoke exposure. Bystanders, including children, service personnel, and family members, routinely inhale toxic pollutants that significantly heighten their risk of developing asthma, coronary heart disease, and malignant tumors. Furthermore, treating smoking-related illnesses burdens national health systems with billions of dollars in medical expenditure each year—resources that could otherwise be allocated toward emergency care, preventative medicine, or infrastructure. From a strictly utilitarian perspective, prohibiting smoking would theoretically eliminate a colossal cause of preventable mortality and vastly improve public health metrics.

On the other hand, implementing a total legal prohibition on tobacco products faces insurmountable practical obstacles and is almost guaranteed to generate unintended, negative socio-economic consequences. Historically, whenever governments have attempted to outlaw highly addictive substances or widely consumed goods—such as alcohol during the American Prohibition era of the 1920s—the outcome was not the elimination of demand, but rather the immediate creation of a lucrative black market. If smoking were criminalized, millions of nicotine-dependent individuals would simply turn to illicit networks. This outcome would empower organized crime syndicates, inflate law enforcement expenditures, and expose consumers to unregulated, dangerous chemical substitutes, all while failing to curb addiction effectively.

In addition to enforcement difficulties, an outright ban would cause severe economic disruption globally. Tobacco cultivation, processing, distribution, and retail provide employment and livelihoods for millions of individuals worldwide, particularly in developing agrarian economies. Moreover, state governments derive immense annual revenue from tobacco excise taxes, funds that are frequently earmarked for public education, transport infrastructure, and the medical sector itself. A sudden prohibition would wipe out these legal revenue streams overnight, creating severe fiscal deficits while simultaneously burdening judicial systems with the prosecution and incarceration of ordinary citizens struggling with substance dependency.

Given these complex realities, the most effective path forward lies not in criminalization, but in progressive, high-intensity regulation combined with public education. Over recent decades, numerous developed nations have demonstrated that tobacco consumption can be drastically reduced without resorting to total prohibition. Strategies such as imposing steep taxation on tobacco goods, restricting smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces, mandating standardized plain packaging with graphic medical warnings, and raising the legal purchasing age have systematically de-normalized smoking. When these structural barriers are complemented by public health campaigns and state-funded smoking cessation programs—such as free nicotine replacement therapies and counseling—smoking rates decline steadily and sustainably.

In conclusion, although the severe illnesses caused by smoking fully justify aggressive state intervention, making tobacco strictly illegal is an impractical remedy that would ultimately cause more harm than good. A complete ban would inevitably foster illegal trade, strip governments of critical tax revenues, and penalize addicted individuals rather than treating their condition. Therefore, governments should refrain from criminalizing smoking and instead continue to refine comprehensive regulatory frameworks, heavy taxation regimes, and robust public health education to render tobacco usage socially and practically obsolete.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 3.0

The response is completely off-topic. The prompt clearly instructs the candidate to summarize information from a specific chart and table regarding Anthropology graduates and their destinations and salaries, and to make comparisons where relevant. Instead, the candidate has written a full-length essay arguing whether governments should completely ban smoking and tobacco products. Because the student failed to address the visual data provided in Academic Task 1 entirely, the response cannot be credited under the criteria for this task type.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.5

Although the response is written for the wrong task type, the internal organization of the essay itself is skillfully executed and demonstrates a high level of overall coherence. The text is logically sequenced, moving smoothly from an introduction with a clear thesis to well-supported body paragraphs addressing distinct facets of the debate, and concluding with a concise summary. Paragraphing is used effectively and appropriately, with each new idea or counter-argument introduced in a distinct, well-managed paragraph. Cohesive devices such as 'On the one hand', 'Furthermore', and 'In addition to enforcement difficulties' are employed flexibly to signal logical relationships, ensuring the progression of ideas is easy to follow throughout.

Lexical Resource: Band 8.5

The vocabulary utilized throughout the essay is wide, fluent, and highly flexible. The writer demonstrates a very strong command of sophisticated, uncommon lexical items and academic collocations, such as 'preventable causes of premature death', 'involuntary risks', 'utilitarian perspective', 'insurmountable practical obstacles', and 'substance dependency'. Word choice and collocations are generally precise, and errors are only occasional and minor. The language is well-suited to formal argumentative writing, displaying a natural control of style and register, although it is unfortunately misapplied due to responding to the wrong prompt.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 8.5

The response exhibits a wide range of complex grammatical structures used with a high degree of accuracy. The majority of sentences are completely error-free, featuring sophisticated syntactic constructions such as conditional clauses, participial phrases, and embedded relative clauses (e.g., 'Historically, whenever governments have attempted to outlaw highly addictive substances... the outcome was not...'). Control of verb tenses, subject-verb agreement, articles, and punctuation is exceptionally strong. Only very occasional, minor slips occur, showcasing a high level of grammatical control appropriate for advanced academic writing.

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