Writing Task 2: Discussion (Both Views) Essay: Question 5
Syllabus W.task2
Some people believe that children who display a strong talent in one particular area, such as music, art or a sport, should be encouraged to specialise in it from a young age. Other people believe that all children should follow a broad, balanced curriculum throughout their school years, regardless of any early talent they show.
Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.
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 essay develops the specialisation view (accelerated skill development for exceptional talents) and the broad-curriculum view (preserved options, academic safety net) with fully comparable depth and a specific example each, then commits to a clear, sustained opinion (“I favour breadth over narrow specialisation for the vast majority of children”) that is reasoned rather than asserted, and reinforced with an explicit justification in the conclusion.
Coherence & Cohesion
Topic sentences make each paragraph’s viewpoint explicit (“Proponents of early specialisation argue that…”, “Advocates of a broad curriculum, however, warn that…”), and the contrastive “however” clearly marks the pivot between the two views. Reference chains (“this argument”, “a single talent”) and logical sequencing (skill-development claim, then risk-based counter-claim) keep the essay easy to follow without a mechanical list of transition words.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is precise and appropriately sophisticated: “disproportionate time”, “generalist school timetable”, “dangerously unprepared”, “extracurricular time”. Near-synonyms are used to avoid repetition (e.g. “specialisation”, “narrowing formal education”), and collocations are accurate throughout (“accelerate… development”, “pays off”).
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
The response shows confident control of complex structures: a colon introducing an elaboration (“a genuine dilemma: nurture that talent…”), a conditional-style clause (“if the talent fails to translate… or if an injury… intervenes”), and a comparative construction (“far more effectively than a generalist school timetable ever could”). No errors of tense, agreement or word form are present anywhere in the essay.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most damaging is treating the broad-curriculum view as an afterthought rather than developing its own distinct reasoning and example. A band 9 discussion essay must argue both sides with genuinely equal care before the candidate’s opinion is given.