Writing Task 2: Advantages & Disadvantages Essay: Question 7
Syllabus W.task2
Several governments have set firm deadlines for phasing out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, requiring the country to switch rapidly to electric vehicles instead.
Do the advantages of this rapid switch to electric vehicles 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 and states a clear, sustained verdict (“I believe the advantages… outweigh the disadvantages”) that is never diluted later. Each body paragraph develops one genuinely distinct, fully extended point (emissions/health benefits, then infrastructure/cost drawbacks) each supported by a specific example rather than a vague assertion, and the conclusion explicitly weighs the two sides against each other (“permanent and far-reaching” versus “transitional problems”) rather than merely repeating the introduction.
Coherence & Cohesion
The essay progresses logically from the case for the policy to a fair acknowledgement of its costs, signposted by “The principal advantage is…” and “Against this, the disadvantages are…”. Reference chains (“this pollution”, “these are not marginal gains”, “this transition”) link ideas smoothly, and the extended Norway example is woven directly into the argument rather than tacked on.
Lexical Resource
Register is precise and topic-appropriate throughout: “fine particulates”, “at the point of use”, “transitional problems”. The essay avoids repeating “good” or “bad” by instead varying the evaluation through collocations such as “sharp reduction”, “measurably cleaner air” and “far-reaching gains”.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
A wide range of structures is used accurately: a non-defining relative clause (“Norway, where electric cars already make up the majority…”), a concessive clause (“while real, are temporary and solvable”), and varied sentence openings across all four paragraphs. There are no errors of tense, agreement or article use anywhere in the response.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most damaging band 6 error on this prompt is writing only about the general benefits of electric cars without engaging with the disadvantages of a rapid, time-limited switch specifically, which leaves the “outweigh” judgement unsupported by any genuine weighing of both sides.