Should schools teach practical skills alongside academic subjects?
The question
School students should be taught practical skills alongside traditional academic subjects. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
How to answer it
Agreeing is easy and therefore risky — the essay will be generic unless you get specific about which skills and what they replace. Name three (personal finance, basic cooking, digital literacy), justify each in one clause, and then handle the real objection: the timetable is already full, so say what you would cut or how you would integrate rather than add.
What moves the band
- 'Alongside' matters: this is not academic versus practical, and treating it as a binary misreads the task.
- One counter-argument answered properly is worth more than a third supporting point.
These are candidate recalls. These are questions reported by test-takers after their exams, not official or leaked IELTS material. Wording varies by test version, location and memory. Use them for timed practice — never as a prediction of what you will be asked.
Practise these next
Know the number. Now move it.
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