Writing Task 2: Problem & Solution Essay: Question 2
Syllabus W.task2
Household surveys in many countries show that a large proportion of the food that people buy is thrown away uneaten, much of it still edible at the time it is discarded.
What are the causes of this, and what solutions can you suggest?
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 trend precisely and outlines the causes-then-solutions structure the prompt requires. Two genuinely distinct causes (overbuying and label confusion) are each explained and exemplified, and the solutions paragraph answers both directly, so every part of the two-part question is addressed with comparable depth before the conclusion restates the link between cause and remedy.
Coherence & Cohesion
Topic sentences clearly announce each new idea (“One major cause is…”, “A second cause is…”, “Several solutions could reduce this waste”), and “Thurncastle” is referenced consistently across paragraphs to tie the causes and solutions together as a single connected argument rather than two separate lists.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is precise and naturally varied: “perishable items”, “date labelling”, “safety cutoff”, “public information campaigns”. Near-synonyms avoid repetition (e.g. “thrown away”, “discarded”, “wasted” all referring to the same act), and collocations are accurate (“drawn in by bulk discounts”, “cut a family’s weekly food waste”).
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
The response shows confident control of complex structures: a colon introducing an explanation, a non-defining relative clause (“a “best before” date, which only indicates peak quality…”), and a reduced relative clause (“a habit that one community programme… showed could cut…”). 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 collapsing “best before” and “use by” into a single idea, since the strongest responses on this exact prompt hinge on showing that the two labels mean different things and that this confusion is itself a distinct, fixable cause of waste.