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    Writing Task 2Reported July 2026

    Is preventing environmental damage the politicians' job?

    The question

    The responsibility of preventing global environmental damage lies on politicians, as the individuals can do very little about it. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

    How to answer it

    The prompt bundles two claims and you can split them: that responsibility sits with politicians, and that individuals can do very little. The second is largely true on the arithmetic — household choices are a small share of emissions — and conceding it is what makes the essay look informed rather than dutiful. Then argue that it does not lead where the prompt thinks: individuals are not powerless as consumers, they are powerful as voters, and the politicians only act when enough of them do. Land on responsibility being shared but asymmetric.

    What moves the band

    • Do not write the recycling paragraph. Everyone does, and it argues for the position the prompt already assumes you will take.
    • Policy lexis: carbon pricing, regulation, the incentives are misaligned, a collective-action problem.
    • 'Very little' is the phrase to attack — quantify it rather than denying it.

    Two essays, two bands

    Both essays below respond to this exact question. Read them in order: the difference between them is what a band is actually made of. They are written by us for this page — they are not candidate transcripts.

    Band 6.5

    What a 6.5 sounds like

    It is often argued that only politicians can prevent damage to the global environment, because ordinary people are not able to do anything significant. I completely agree with this opinion for the following reasons.

    Firstly, governments have the power to make laws, and laws are the only thing that can force companies to change their behaviour. A single person cannot stop a factory from polluting a river, but a government can close that factory or give it a heavy fine. Similarly, only a government can build a metro system, invest in solar energy or sign an international agreement about carbon emissions. These are the actions that really make a difference on a global scale.

    Secondly, what individuals can do is very limited. Of course, people can recycle their plastic bottles, turn off the lights when they leave a room, use public transport instead of their car, and avoid plastic bags when they go shopping. These are all good habits and we should teach them to our children. However, if one person recycles and a factory releases tons of chemicals every day, the effect of that person is almost zero. Therefore individual efforts are not enough to solve such a huge problem.

    In conclusion, I strongly believe that the responsibility for protecting the environment lies mainly with politicians, because they have the power and the resources, while individuals can only make very small changes in their daily lives, and it is the government that must lead this fight.

    Why it scores what it scores: Organised, accurate and firmly positioned, so Task Response is satisfied — this is a comfortable 6.5. What it never does is disagree with anything. The prompt hands the candidate a claim and the essay agrees with it twice, and the second body paragraph is the recycling list the plan tells you not to write. The result is an essay that argues for the position the examiner assumed you would take, at length.

    Band 8

    What an 8 sounds like

    This statement bundles two claims together, and they deserve separate answers. That individuals can do very little is largely true, and conceding it early is what stops this essay becoming a lecture about recycling. That responsibility therefore rests with politicians does not follow — because the mechanism by which politicians act is the one thing individuals control.

    Take the concession seriously first. Household behaviour is a small share of emissions, and the largest single decision most people make is which country they happen to live in. Someone who cycles, refuses plastic and eats no meat still lives in a grid powered by whatever their government procured a decade ago. Framing this as personal virtue is not merely ineffective; it is convenient for the people it distracts attention from, since a public busy auditing its own shopping is not auditing anybody's policy.

    That is exactly why the conclusion the prompt draws is wrong. Politicians do not act on environmental damage spontaneously, because the costs are immediate and the benefits arrive after the next election. They act when the political price of inaction exceeds the price of action, and that price is set by voters, by litigation, by journalists and by shareholders — all of which are individuals acting in the only role where their leverage is not negligible. The countries with serious carbon pricing did not produce unusually enlightened politicians; they produced electorates that made the alternative expensive.

    So responsibility is shared, but not symmetrically. Politicians hold the instruments; individuals decide whether using them is survivable. Treating the first as the whole answer is how a public excuses itself from the second.

    Why it scores what it scores: The introduction splits a compound prompt into two claims and answers them differently, which is the highest-value move available on an agree/disagree and almost nobody makes it. The concession paragraph is genuine and even turns the standard consumer-guilt argument into an argument against itself. Crucially the essay never writes the recycling paragraph the plan warns about, and its final distinction — instruments versus permission — is a position, not a summary.

    Phrases worth stealing

    • “This statement bundles two claims together, and they deserve separate answers”
    • “a public busy auditing its own shopping is not auditing anybody's policy”
    • “the costs are immediate and the benefits arrive after the next election”
    • “they produced electorates that made the alternative expensive”
    • “Politicians hold the instruments; individuals decide whether using them is survivable”

    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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