Students are told to aim for band 7 far more often than they are shown what the difference looks like. Here are two answers to the same question, both written for this lesson, and then the list of what actually separates them.
The question. Some people believe that online courses will eventually replace traditional university teaching, while others argue the classroom can never be replaced. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
Answer A — around band 5.
Nowadays online courses are very popular in the world. Some people think it will replace the university and other people think it is not possible. In my opinion both have good things and bad things.
First of all online courses are very cheap and easy. Student can study at home and no need to travel. This is very good for poor students and also for working people. Many websites are providing many courses for free or low cost. So this is a big advantage.
On the other hand, university is also important. In university student can meet friends and teachers directly. If they have doubt they can ask immediately. Also there are laboratory and library facilities which is not available in online. Some subjects like medical cannot be taught online because practical is needed.
In conclusion, both are good in their own way and I think online courses cannot fully replace the university but it can help the students.
Answer B — around band 7.
The growth of online learning has led some observers to predict the end of campus teaching, while others insist that a university education cannot be delivered through a screen. This essay considers both positions before arguing that online courses will supplement traditional teaching rather than replace it.
The case for online learning rests largely on access. A recorded lecture can be watched by a student in a small town who could never afford to move cities, and it can be paused, repeated and fitted around a job. For subjects that are mainly conceptual — economics, programming, management theory — a well-designed online course can deliver the same content at a fraction of the cost, which explains why enrolment in these programmes has risen so sharply.
The counter-argument is not really about content, however, but about everything around it. Laboratory work, clinical training and studio practice cannot be simulated convincingly, and the informal parts of a degree — the supervisor who redirects a weak project, the classmate who explains something the lecturer did not — are exactly what a video cannot reproduce. A student who struggles to work alone often discovers this only after enrolling.
In my view the likely outcome is a division of labour rather than a replacement. Universities will continue to own the practical, the supervised and the social; online providers will take the lecture. The institutions that survive comfortably will be the ones that stop competing with a recording and concentrate on what only a campus can do.
What separates them.
- Position. B states its position in the introduction and keeps it. A says "both have good
- things and bad things" and only decides in the conclusion.
- Development. B gives one idea per paragraph and pushes it — access, then what access
- cannot buy. A lists several points in a sentence each.
- Precision. "Subjects that are mainly conceptual — economics, programming, management
- theory" against "some subjects like medical". Naming things is the single cheapest upgrade
- available to most students.
- Grammar range. B uses subordinate clauses, a relative clause and a conditional naturally.
- A is almost entirely simple sentences, with article and plural slips ("Student can study",
- "which is not available").
- Register. A opens with "Nowadays" and "very good"; B avoids both without reaching for
- anything exotic.
Notice what B does NOT do. There is no rare vocabulary, no memorised phrase about "the mushrooming of technology", and no attempt to sound like a textbook. It is ordinary English, used accurately, about one clear position.