Model Essay 9: Ageing Populations
Question type: advantages and disadvantages, without an outweigh. Read the instruction: this one asks you to discuss, not to decide.
Unofficial original RCF practice material
Original question and essay written by RCF English. Not endorsed by the British Council, IDP: IELTS Australia or Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
The question
In many countries, people are living considerably longer than they did in the past, and the proportion of older people in the population is rising.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this development.
Write at least 250 words.
What to do when you know little about the topic
You are not being marked on knowledge. Nobody expects a candidate to have read demographic research, and no examiner checks your facts.
What you can always do is reason from the general to the particular. If more people are old, then more people are retired, then fewer workers support more pensioners, then either taxes rise or the retirement age does. That chain is available to anyone who thinks for two minutes, and it produces a better essay than a half-remembered statistic.
The one thing to avoid is inventing numbers. By 2050 there will be 2.1 billion people over 60 earns nothing even if it happens to be right.
The plan
| Paragraph | Content |
|---|---|
| Introduction | Note that this is a symptom of success, which is the framing most essays miss. Signal both sides. |
| Body 1 | Advantages: longer healthy working lives, accumulated skill, and unpaid work - especially childcare - that makes other people's employment possible. |
| Body 2 | Disadvantages: the dependency arithmetic, and the concentration of healthcare cost in the final years. |
| Body 3 (short) | The observation that ties them together: which side dominates depends almost entirely on whether the added years are healthy ones. |
| Conclusion | Balanced, because the instruction is discuss - but with the healthy-years point restated as the thing that decides it. |
The model essay
Question: In many countries, people are living considerably longer than they did in the past, and the proportion of older people in the population is rising. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this development.
It is worth beginning by noticing what an ageing population actually shows. It is the result of better medicine, safer work, cleaner water and fewer children dying. In other words it is a sign of success, even though it is almost always discussed as a crisis. It does, however, bring real difficulties alongside its benefits.
The advantages are easy to overlook. People who stay healthy into their seventies can carry on working, and they bring judgement and experience that cannot be gained quickly. In fields such as medicine, teaching and law, the most valuable people are rarely the youngest. Older people also do an enormous amount of unpaid work that never appears in any economic figure. Grandparents who provide regular childcare are, in effect, paying for the employment of the generation below them, and communities depend heavily on retired volunteers for tasks nobody is paid to do.
The disadvantages are mainly a matter of arithmetic. If a smaller working population has to support a larger retired one, then either taxes rise, retirement comes later, or pensions and services are cut. All three are politically difficult. Healthcare costs are also concentrated heavily in the last years of life, so a society with more people at that stage will spend much more on medicine however efficient its system is.
What decides which side matters more is not how long people live but how well. Extra years spent working, helping and living independently are a clear gain. Extra years spent frail and dependent are a clear cost.
The development therefore brings genuine advantages and genuine difficulties, and the balance between them depends far less on how long people live than on how healthy they are while doing so.
Why this answer works
- **The instruction is discuss, not do the advantages outweigh, so the essay stays balanced** and does not force a verdict. Matching the answer to the exact wording is the whole of Task Response.
- The opening reframes the topic - success, not crisis - which immediately separates this from the standard treatment.
- The advantages paragraph finds the point most candidates miss: unpaid childcare as a subsidy to the working generation. Looking for the effect that is invisible in the obvious framing is the most reliable way to produce an original paragraph.
- The disadvantages are handled by reasoning, not data. Either taxes rise, retirement comes later, or pensions and services are cut is a complete argument derived from first principles, and needs no statistics.
- The short fourth paragraph introduces the distinction that organises everything - healthy years against dependent years - and it is placed late so the conclusion can use it.
- The conclusion is balanced but not empty. It refuses a verdict, as instructed, while still saying what the answer depends on.
- 300 words. Band 7 to 7.5.
Language worth borrowing
- It is worth beginning by noticing what X actually shows.
- Opens by reframing, and warns the reader that the obvious reading is about to be questioned.
- a sign of success, even though it is almost always discussed as a crisis
- Contrasts what something is with how it is described.
- The advantages are easy to overlook.
- A topic sentence that promises something non-obvious.
- are, in effect, paying for
- In effect lets you make a strong economic claim about something that involves no money.
- depends far less on how long people live than on how healthy they are
- A less X than Y construction to close on, at the point the examiner forms a final impression.
Check your own attempt
- Did you check whether the question asked you to discuss or to decide?
- Did you find at least one advantage that is not obvious?
- Did you reason from first principles rather than reaching for statistics?
- Did you avoid inventing figures?
- Are you between 260 and 300 words?
Now try this variation
In many countries, more and more people are choosing to live alone. Do the advantages of this trend outweigh the disadvantages?
Note the change of instruction - this one wants a verdict. Practise spotting that difference at the planning stage, because it is the single easiest band to lose.
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Essay 10: Traditional skills
The last of the ten: a two-part question.
All ten essays
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