IELTS Writing Task 2: Band 7 Essay Sample on Education
Essay Question
"Nowadays, not enough students choose science subjects in university in many countries. What are the reasons for this problem? What are the effects on society?"
Original Submission
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It is a serious problem that there is an inadequate number of students who tend to select science as their major subject in universities in many countries. In my view, students may think that studying science has not a good career path. Also, this issue may deeply affect the international state of a country. The main reason why people do not think to study science is that they may see science as something unpractical, and potentially, they are hard to find a job when they graduate. Students are generally afraid that there is no employment opportunity after they graduate from university. Unlike engineering and business management, in which fields employers provide plenty of vocational positions for graduated students because there are lots of companies activating in these fields and universities may provide some practical training courses and internships. Students studying science have a relatively narrow way to walk, and may just be scientists. Moreover, although a successful scientist can get a massive bonus from some prizes, it is too hard to accomplish and is more likely to fail. Therefore, Students will avoid taking those risks and choose other subjects that are relatively stable and easy to find a job. This trend will eventually decrease the state of a country. Developing science can provide a strong and firm foundation for a country to establish a healthy and prosperous community. If there are not enough scientists, the whole scientific ability will decrease. Not only will the government pay extra money to other foreign countries to buy the required technology such as military equipment, but the public needs to spend more time and pay more effort to maintain the international standard production rate of a country. It is extremely dangerous that a nation easily suffers from a financial crisis and, finally, it influences the living standard of its citizens and causes damage to its financial systems. In summary, while science is regarded as a "useless" subject because of its narrow career path and low success rate, it is vital that the economic systems would be affected if a country develop without scientists.
Nomad English Assessment
Task Response
7.5
Coherence & Cohesion
7
Lexical Resource
7
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
6.5
Examiner Feedback
This is a competent response that addresses both parts of the question with relevant ideas. The essay is well-organised with clear paragraphing for causes and effects. Vocabulary shows a good range ('inadequate', 'vocational', 'prosperous') though some word choices are imprecise ('unpractical' instead of 'impractical', 'decrease the state'). Grammar demonstrates a mix of complex and simple structures, but contains errors in word order ('has not a good career path'), subject-verb constructions, and a fragment starting with 'Unlike'. The conclusion could be stronger—it introduces a conditional structure that doesn't fully cohere. Overall, a solid Band 7 essay with room for refinement in accuracy.
Band 9 Model Rewrite
Here's how a Band 9 response to the same question would look:
Science departments in universities around the world are watching their enrolment numbers shrink, a pattern that reflects deep misalignments between how scientific careers are structured and what students need from a degree. Perception sits at the heart of the problem. Most eighteen-year-olds choose a university subject with at least one eye on what comes afterward, and science—particularly pure science—offers a career narrative that feels uncomfortably vague. An engineering graduate can point to a specific job title; a biology or physics graduate often cannot. The training pipeline reinforces this anxiety. Building a career in research typically demands a doctorate, followed by a string of fixed-term postdoctoral positions with no guarantee of a permanent role. Students who compare this uncertain trajectory with the structured graduate schemes offered in consulting, technology, or finance will understandably gravitate toward the latter. Cultural messaging plays a role too: when media coverage celebrates tech entrepreneurs and investment bankers far more than bench scientists, the implicit hierarchy of prestige becomes hard to ignore. The societal cost of this migration away from science is substantial and compounding. Medical breakthroughs depend on trained biochemists and molecular biologists; fewer graduates entering those fields means slower progress on treatments for diseases that affect millions. National infrastructure—clean water systems, power grids, transport networks—requires engineers grounded in scientific principles, and countries that cannot train enough of them become reliant on foreign expertise at considerable expense. Perhaps most critically, the capacity to respond to novel crises (pandemics, climate disruption, food insecurity) rests on having a large, well-funded scientific workforce ready to mobilise. Without one, governments are left reacting rather than anticipating. Closing this gap means making science careers structurally competitive, not just rhetorically valued. Funded doctoral programmes, clear tenure pathways, and industry partnerships that create non-academic roles for science graduates would collectively reshape the decision facing incoming university students—and with it, a country's long-term capacity to solve its hardest problems.
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