Model Essay 10: Traditional Skills
Question type: two-part. The second half asks what should be done - which means the essay has to commit to something specific.
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, traditional crafts and skills are disappearing as older generations pass away.
Why is this happening, and what, if anything, should be done about it?
Write at least 250 words.
Notice the words *if anything*
What, if anything, should be done explicitly permits you to argue that nothing should be done, or that only some things are worth saving. The question is inviting a discriminating answer rather than a list of preservation measures.
Small qualifiers of this kind appear often, and reading past them is how candidates end up answering a slightly different question from the one asked.
The plan
| Paragraph | Content |
|---|---|
| Introduction | Answer both halves in a sentence each. Position: save selectively, not comprehensively. |
| Body 1 (why) | Two causes: the economic one (machines make the product more cheaply), and the transmission one (these skills pass by apprenticeship, and one missed generation breaks the chain permanently). |
| Body 2 (what) | The distinction that does the work: preserving a product is sentimental; preserving knowledge that cannot be reconstructed is not. |
| Body 3 | Concretely: fund apprenticeships where the knowledge is genuinely irrecoverable; record the rest properly while people can still demonstrate it. |
| Conclusion | Restate the criterion - can it be relearned from a record, or only from a person? |
The model essay
Question: In many countries, traditional crafts and skills are disappearing as older generations pass away. Why is this happening, and what, if anything, should be done about it?
Traditional crafts are vanishing mainly because the work they once did is now done more cheaply by other means, and because the way they are passed on is unusually fragile. I do not think everything can or should be saved, but a particular category of knowledge is worth real effort.
The economic cause is straightforward. A machine-made basket costs a fraction of a hand-made one and does the same job, so demand collapses, and a craft that cannot support a household does not attract apprentices. The second cause matters more and is less often mentioned. These skills are transmitted by demonstration and correction over years, not by instruction, and much of what the expert knows cannot be put into words - the moment a piece of wood is ready, the sound that indicates the temperature is right. That kind of knowledge lives in people. If a single generation does not learn it, there is no one left to demonstrate it, and the loss becomes permanent in a way that the loss of a written technique never is.
That distinction seems to me the right basis for deciding what to do. Preserving a craft simply because it is old, when the object it produces is worse and more expensive than the alternative, is sentimental and unlikely to survive the withdrawal of the subsidy. Preserving knowledge that cannot be reconstructed once it is gone is a different matter entirely.
In practice this suggests two things. Where a skill is genuinely irrecoverable and still has a living practitioner, funded apprenticeships are worth the cost, because a person is the only possible archive. Where it is not, thorough recording - filmed, detailed, made while the expert can still be questioned - is a reasonable and far cheaper alternative.
The test is simple: could this be relearned from a record, or only from a person?
Why this answer works
- Both halves of the question are answered in the introduction, and the position responds to the if anything qualifier: not everything should be saved. The essay is visibly on task from the first sentence.
- The second cause is the strong one and the essay says so - matters more and is less often mentioned. Ranking your own points is a Band 8 habit.
- Tacit knowledge is explained without the term: the moment a piece of wood is ready, the sound that indicates the temperature is right. Two concrete examples do more than a technical word would.
- The essay produces a criterion rather than a list, and then applies it. This is the difference between an argument and a set of suggestions.
- The proposals are specific and costed in kind: funded apprenticeships where the knowledge is irrecoverable, recording where it is not, with a reason for choosing between them.
- A one-line conclusion. After a densely argued essay, a single-sentence test lands hard and reads as confidence rather than as running out of time.
- 297 words - near the top of the sensible range, and every paragraph is doing work.
Language worth borrowing
- The second cause matters more and is less often mentioned.
- That kind of knowledge lives in people.
- is sentimental and unlikely to survive the withdrawal of the subsidy
- a person is the only possible archive
- The test is simple: could this be relearned from a record, or only from a person?
Check your own attempt
- Did you answer both halves at similar length?
- Did you notice if anything and allow yourself to be selective?
- Did you produce a criterion, or only a list of suggestions?
- Are your suggestions specific enough to say who does what?
- Are you between 260 and 300 words?
Now try this variation
Some languages are spoken by only a few hundred people and are likely to disappear within a generation. Why does this matter, and what, if anything, should be done?
The same criterion transfers almost exactly - what can be reconstructed from a record, and what only lives in people. Notice that it transfers because the underlying structure is the same, not because the topic is. That is what studying a model essay is for.
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