Beware of Free Materials Online!

ScottsEnglishScottsEnglish Administrator Posts: 1,296 admin ✭✭✭✭✭✭✭
edited June 2016 in Writing
Our staff were recently viewing a number of IELTS sites purporting to offer 'Band 9' sample answers to 'recent IELTS questions'!

Here is the question:
Nowadays, more and more older people who need employment compete with younger people for the same jobs.  What problems does this cause?  What are some solutions? 

Here is the first paragraph of the 'Band 9' answer.
It is true that competition is a significant attitude in a workplace which is more prevalence between young and old employees. There are numerous reasons regarding this issue and various measures can be taken by governments to improve this situation.

There are several significant problems with this introductory paragraph:

  1. It is not clear what 'significant attitude' means (coherence problem).
  2. The wrong form of the word 'prevalent' has been used (grammar problem).
  3. It is not clear what 'this issue' means (cohesion problem).
  4. Worst of all, part of the answer appears to be memorised: '...various measures can be taken by governments to improve this situation'. (a meaningless statement).

Our message is simply this: When it comes to free information about IELTS online, you best be sure that the source can be trusted. Do some research before you accept the free IELTS/TOEFL/TOEIC information you come across online. 

Enrol with us at www.scottsenglish.com and www.scottsenglishplus.com.  After you have enrolled, have a look around our site for 24 hours.  If you don't like it, we'll cheerfully refund your enrolment fee!  There's no risk with our sites.  For over 10 years, students have been trusting us for IELTS instruction.


Sign In or Register to comment.