Hi "Essays" and thanks for this essay.
You have some excellent vocabulary, and with some reduction in word length, simpler sentences, simpler ideas and fewer generalizations and unsupported ideas you should get a great score.
ChrisLuke summed up the major weakness with this essay when he said:
hmmm….a bit wordy? hmmmm
He's absolutely right. Too many words, too many long sentences, too many ideas in one sentence, and too many unnecessary words. Wordy.
The essay is 358 words long, which is too long. Remember you only have 35 minutes or so after planning, and you have to write by hand. You will already have a done a listening test and a reading test and written 150 words for Part 1 of the writing test, so you will be tired.
It’s a good idea to get in the habit of writing just the required 250 words. There’s no penalty for writing more than 250, but many candidates who write more make more mistakes and penalize themselves severely. The topics are designed to be answered in 250-300 words. There’s no point in feeling frustrated that you can’t write more - it’s simply not required!
There is also the danger of a topic coming in an area you are familiar with. This sounds like a good thing, but in fact many candidates suffer if they find essay topics on subjects from their field. Their specialist knowledge creates a problem: how can they deal with topic they are highly experienced with in just 250 words.
Another problem with this essay is that the average sentence length is 22.4 words. This is too long. You need to reduce the average number of words per sentence.
You can do this by
- Adding more short sentences (6-10 words)
- Breaking up long sentences
- Having only one idea per sentence
- Avoiding long complicated structures, and aiming for a mix of structures - some long, some short, with different sentence types.
Try not to have any sentence longer than 25-27 words, and aim for an average sentence length of about 12-15 words. Under “Useful Links” at the top of this page, there are some readability indexes and useful tools for analyzing your writing. Here’s one from read-able.com, and one from online-utility.org.
Shorten and Simplify
You wrote:
With senility there is a change in their body composition and metabolism and so their dietary requirement changes with increasing risk of chronic medical diseases like hypertension, diabetes and obesity.
This is 30 words long and has a lot of ‘heavy’ nouns (nominalizations). There are only two verbs: ‘is’ and ‘change,’ but over 12 nouns or noun phrases. Verbs help your writing to move: nouns make it heavy and lifeless.
I’m not a medical expert but are you sure ‘senility’ is the right word here? Is senility linked with obesity? (The ‘and so’ suggests it is). Make sure your ideas are supported fully, and try to avoid too many ideas in one sentence.
Does a change in ‘dietary requirement’ lead to an ‘increasing risk’ of hypertension? I can understand something like this
Changes in diet can lead to diabetes or high blood pressure. (11 words)
But is this limited to old people?
Here’s another long sentence (33 words) which is correct, but….
The next reason is poor social relationships as people living in broken relationships tend to develop and maintain negative perceptions of self, find life less satisfying and often lack the motivation to change.
Why are old people in ‘poor social relationships’? It's not clear. The answer doesn’t come until the next sentence:
The death of spouse, friends and social disengagement after leaving the work or a family neighbourhood are some of the ubiquitous life-changing events contributing to loneliness in older people.
I think it is the example or support for the previous sentence, but I’m not sure. There's just too much going on.
There are some excellent ideas and phrases here, but I am not very happy with the link between the ideas. I would prefer simpler, shorter sentences, each with a clearer focus and a specific example, rather than dense sentences with many clustered ideas.
You wrote:
Chronic pain and physical disability can understandably bring them down giving rise to the feelings of being worthlessness and burden to the family and society.
Here's one possible rewrite:
Chronic pain and physical disability can make people feel they are worthless or a burden on their family and society.
Reference
you wrote in a topic sentence for your third paragraph:
The best way to solve this problem is by maintaining better heath
What does ‘‘this problem’ refer to? The death of a spouse? The lack of social engagement? Hypertension? Senility? These are all things referred to in the previous paragraph. Make sure pronoun reference is very clear. Not all of these problems in your second paragraph can be solved by better health.
Articles/Pronouns/Agreement/Plurals
- There are several reasons for these problem →There are several reasons for these problems
- Several measures can be taken for healthy living of old people. → Several measures can be taken for the healthy living of old people. OR Several steps can be taken to ensure healthier lives for older people.
- being worthlessness and burden → being a burden
- the loneliness in older people → loneliness in older people
- their inability to tolerate the social losses. →their inability to tolerate social losses.
- social disengagement after leaving the work → after leaving work
Shorten and Simplify
You wrote:
Secondly, old people should connect with others in every possible way through mails, phones or video conversation to maintain the perspective of not being alone.
Here’s one possible rewrite:
Keeping in contact with friends and family can also help prevent loneliness.
You wrote:
Firstly, exercise, enough sleep and recommended diet are effective measures for being physically fit.
Why ’measures’? Try to have fewer nouns in your sentences. Here’s one possible rewrite:
Firstly, moderate exercise, enough sleep, and a balanced diet can help maintain fitness.
Shorten and Simplify
You wrote:
Thirdly, they should learn to value their time and involve actively in learning new skills, taking care of their pet, enjoying hobbies or past times that used to bring them joy. (31 words, one sentence, average 31 words per sentence)
Here’s one possible rewrite:
Thirdly, they should learn to value their time and learn new skills. They can take care of pets, enjoy new hobbies or pastimes, or attend classes and groups. (28 words, 2 sentences, average 14 wps)
Parallel
Keep clauses parallel. The longer your sentence, the more difficult this is to do.
You wrote:
Therefore, to overcome loneliness they need to involve on finding new things they enjoy and learn to adapt change, stay physically and socially active and feeling connected to community and loved ones.
Here’s one possible rewrite:
Therefore, to overcome loneliness they need to find new things they enjoy, learn to adapt to change, stay physically and socially active, and feel connected to community and loved ones.
OR, as two sentences:
Therefore, to overcome loneliness they need to find new things they enjoy. By staying physically and socially active, they will feel connected to community and loved ones, and be able to adapt to change more easily.
You wrote:
Thirdly, they should learn to value their time and involve actively in learning new skills, taking care of their pet, enjoying hobbies or past times that used to bring them joy.
Here’s one possible rewrite:
Thirdly, they should learn to value their time. Older people can become involved in learning new skills, taking care of pets, and enjoying hobbies or pastimes.
Word Choice/Word Form/Usage
- Past times → pastimes
- cope through stressful life changes. → cope with stressful life changes
- the feelings of being worthlessness → feelings of worthlessness OR feelings of being worthless
- they need to involve on finding new things →they need to be involved in OR they need get involved with OR become involved in
Generalizations/Unsupported Ideas
You wrote:
In conclusion, older people are literally imprisoned in solitary confinement by illness and their inability to tolerate the social losses.
No! With respect, not all older people feel imprisoned or are senile, socially disengaged or suffer from hypertension, diabetes and obesity. It's an extreme generalization.
Have a look at the official IELTS descriptors for Task 2 Writing here, under Task Response, and look for the word ‘over-generalise’ or ‘unsupported ideas.’
Remember, your friendly IELTS examiner reading your paper is quite likely to be getting on in years, and will probably not want to hear that he or she is senile, in solitary confinement, unable to deal with social loss, and a pullulating mass of unseemly bodily changes, decomposition and metabolic disintegration.
Try, try, try to avoid generalizations. Keep things simple, and avoid sweeping statements. It would be a shame if someone with good vocabulary and structures lost marks because of unsupported ideas or over-generalizations.