Model Essay 6: Spending on Space Exploration
Question type: opinion. This one rewards a candidate who is willing to attack the assumption buried in the question.
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
Governments should stop spending money on space exploration and use it to solve problems on Earth instead.
Do you agree or disagree?
Write at least 250 words.
You are allowed to challenge the question
This statement contains an unstated assumption: that the money saved would in fact be spent on the problems mentioned, and that the two compete for the same funds.
Examining an assumption like this is not evasion, provided you still answer the question. It is one of the clearest signals of a Band 8 or 9 Task Response - but only if you then commit to a position. Identifying the flaw and refusing to answer scores badly.
The plan
| Paragraph | Content |
|---|---|
| Introduction | State the position: disagree, and flag that the statement rests on a false comparison. |
| Body 1 | The strongest form of the opposing case, conceded properly: urgent needs, real opportunity cost. |
| Body 2 | The scale objection: space budgets are small relative to the problems they are compared with, so the trade-off is largely illusory. |
| Body 3 | The direct-benefit argument: much of what space programmes produce is used on Earth - weather, navigation, climate observation. |
| Conclusion | Reframe: the real question is not space versus Earth, but whether public money is spent well. |
The model essay
Question: Governments should stop spending money on space exploration and use it to solve problems on Earth instead. Do you agree or disagree?
The argument for abandoning space exploration is emotionally powerful: it seems indefensible to send equipment to other planets while people on this one lack clean water. I disagree with it nonetheless, largely because the comparison it rests on is not a real one.
The case deserves to be stated properly first. Public money is finite, every choice has an opportunity cost, and the needs it is weighed against - housing, medicine, sanitation - are urgent and concrete in a way that a distant scientific return is not. Anyone who dismisses that is not taking the question seriously.
The difficulty is that the two things are not, in practice, competing for the same money. National space budgets are a very small fraction of government spending - far smaller than most people assume when they picture the comparison, and small enough that redirecting them entirely would make little visible difference to the problems in question. Meanwhile the amounts lost to poor procurement, or spent on servicing debt, dwarf them. If the concern is genuinely that public money should go where it does the most good, space exploration is a strange place to start looking.
There is also a more direct objection. A great deal of what space programmes produce is not about other planets at all. Weather forecasting, satellite navigation, global communications and, most importantly, the measurement of the Earth's own climate all depend on capabilities developed and maintained by space agencies. Much of the money described as being spent on space is in fact being spent on understanding this planet, and would have to be spent again under another name.
In my view the question is wrongly framed. What matters is not whether money is spent above the atmosphere or below it, but whether it is spent well.
Why this answer works
- The position is stated in the first paragraph and the reason for it is previewed - the comparison it rests on is not a real one. The reader knows the shape of the essay immediately.
- The concession paragraph is unusually generous and ends with a sentence that raises the stakes for the writer: Anyone who dismisses that is not taking the question seriously. Having said that, the essay is obliged to argue rather than sneer.
- The scale argument avoids inventing a number. A very small fraction, far smaller than most people assume, dwarf them - all defensible, none fabricated. A candidate who wrote 0.48% of GDP would gain nothing and might be wrong.
- The strongest point is placed third, not first. Building towards the best argument is more persuasive than leading with it.
- The conclusion reframes rather than repeats. It converts a yes-or-no question into a better question, which is a genuine intellectual move and reads as such.
- Rhetorical control: If the concern is genuinely that public money should go where it does the most good, space exploration is a strange place to start looking. This is one sentence doing the work of a paragraph.
- 292 words.
Language worth borrowing
- The case deserves to be stated properly first.
- the comparison it rests on is not a real one
- is a strange place to start looking
- would have to be spent again under another name
- the question is wrongly framed
Check your own attempt
- Did you commit to a position, or only criticise the question?
- Did you state the opposing case in its strongest form?
- Did you avoid inventing budget figures?
- Does your conclusion add something, rather than repeat the introduction?
- Are you between 260 and 300 words?
Now try this variation
Money spent on the arts would be better spent on public services. Do you agree or disagree?
The same false-comparison move is available. But be careful: the scale argument is weaker here, because arts budgets and public service budgets are drawn from the same local pots far more often. Test whether the move actually works before you use it.
Next
Essay 7: Museums and tourism
Discussion: both views and your opinion.
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