Sample response & feedback

Advertising Power vs Consumer Indifference

Question

Some people say that advertising is extremely successful at persuading us to buy things. Other people think that advertising is so common that we no longer pay attention to it. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Annotated response

12 correction notes

Showing 12 correction notes.

There are those who would argue that advertising has become so pervasive , it hardly has any effect anymore. In my opinion, while people have developed habits to ignore ads, they still achieve their desired effect on the whole .

The main argument against the power of ads is they can be avoided . Online advertising is a good example of this. Users rarely click on or even glance at a website’s combination of pop-up ads , banners , mailing list requests , and auto-playing video ads . These have become so common that consumers have developed of skipping ads on YouTube, quickly closing pop-ups and scrolling past in-page advertising . Advertisers have tried to counter this by making their marketing less conspicuous , as with ads that resemble real posts on social media sites like Instagram, but their sheer frequency means they can be easily identified and do not stand out .

However, despite the best efforts of users, advertisements are still effective. Most people ignore most ads most of the time . This is something that advertisers expect and build into their marketing budgets . These days marketing is the major source of earnings for the largest companies in the world, including Facebook and Google, because of more sophisticated targeted ads . Savvy marketers can and for different audiences until they hone in on the most efficient advertising solutions . They can then replicate these ads and invest more money into the well-performing ones , with the financial justification coming from clicks and sales conversions . Advertising today, in reality , is far more effective than at any point in the past because of the raw data available to target potential consumers and the concrete feedback on ads .

In conclusion, despite the best efforts of ordinary citizens to circumvent advertising, technological innovations have given marketers more power than ever before . This portends badly for future generations and it is important that lawmakers enact regulations on marketers.

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 7.5

The strongest aspect is the sophisticated, well-developed argument that targeted data-driven advertising remains effective despite audience avoidance, supported with concrete examples. The main limitation is occasional imprecision, including a misspelling and some awkward word choices, alongside a conclusion that introduces a new regulatory point rather than consolidating the discussion.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

TR Task Response

7.0

Both views are addressed with a clear position stated upfront and sustained, relevant development and examples throughout, though the conclusion's new regulatory claim is not fully prepared by the body paragraphs.

CC Coherence and Cohesion

7.5

Ideas progress logically across well-structured paragraphs with effective use of contrastive and referencing devices, with only occasional mechanical cohesion such as the abrupt final-sentence shift.

LR Lexical Resource

7.0

Vocabulary is flexible and largely precise, including “less conspicuous”, “targeted ads” and “sales conversions”. The misspelling “succcessful” and less clear combinations such as “cross-test content” and “portends badly” occasionally reduce precision.

GRA Grammatical Range and Accuracy

7.5

A wide range of complex structures is used with flexibility and frequent accuracy, though occasional minor errors in sentence construction are present without impeding meaning.