Writing Task 2: Advantages & Disadvantages Essay: Question 2
Syllabus W.task2
A growing number of companies are trialling a four-day working week, in which staff work one fewer day but are still paid their full previous salary, on the condition that they maintain the same overall level of output.
Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words.
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Worked solution
Examiner notes: why this is a band 9 response
Task Response
The introduction paraphrases the prompt precisely and commits to a clear, sustained position (“I am convinced that the advantages of this arrangement outweigh its disadvantages”) that is maintained through to the conclusion’s explicit verdict. Both sides receive comparable development (the Redfern & Voss example for the advantage, and the constant-coverage sectors for the disadvantage) before the candidate weighs them against one another.
Coherence & Cohesion
Topic sentences flag each side of the argument clearly (“The principal benefit is…”, “The clearest disadvantage is…”), and “Even so” signals the pivot from the acknowledged drawback back to the overall verdict. Reference chains such as “this arrangement” and “these difficulties” tie ideas back without relying on a mechanical list of connectors.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is precise and natural throughout: “counterintuitively”, “stress-related absences”, “constant coverage”, “staggering of days off”. Near-synonyms avoid repetition (e.g. “shortened working week”, “four-day working week”, “this arrangement”), and collocations are accurate (“marked improvement”, “reduces… absences”).
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
The response shows confident control of complex structures: a conditional-style opening (“When the marketing agency… shortened its working week…”), a non-defining relative clause implied through apposition, and varied sentence openings across paragraphs. There are no errors of tense, agreement or word form anywhere in the response.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most damaging is presenting one paragraph of benefits and one of drawbacks without ever stating, as the prompt requires, which side outweighs the other. A band 9 outweigh essay must reach and justify a genuine verdict, not leave the reader to decide.