IELTS Academic Writing Task - II - IELTS Essay Band 7.0 - CEFR B2-C1

IELTS Academic Writing Task - II

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

In some countries, governments are encouraging people to use their cars less and to take public transport instead. Do the advantages of this trend outweigh the disadvantages?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant example from your knowledge or experience.

You should write at least 250 words.

Sample Answer

There are many government initiatives across the world to control the environmental pollution and one of such initiatives is promotion of public transportation. In my opinion, such efforts do not have many advantages and in fact, its shortcomings are much more than few benefits that we may have.

First of all, the advantages of encouraging the use of public transportation are less consumption of fossil fuels and congestion on the road. However, these positives consequences are negligible if a comparison is made between merits and demerits of public transportation. If people stop using their cars and taxis, then, there will be enormous pressure on the government to provide public transportations such as buses, metros and trams. This will certainly put a financial pressure on the government. There is a possibility that the government may be compelled to allocate fewer budgets on health and education, and more on transportation segment. Such scenario will have serious and deleterious consequences.

Another serious outcome of not using cars is that workers have to get up early, and leave home much early in the morning to catch the suitable means of transport to reach the office on time. This will disturb the normal day of every human resources. Since public vehicles will stop at multiple locations before reaching one’s destination, a lot of man hours are wasted while commuting from home and from work. Similar would be the case when an employee returns from work in the evening. Since the travelling with many large crowds creates fatigue, the quality of works also gets affected due to it.

In my conclusion, I would like to state that any benefit that may accrue from the use of public transportation is likely to be insignificant as the disadvantages are too many to neglect.