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.
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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 disappearing 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 one particular kind of knowledge is worth real effort.
The economic cause is simple. A machine-made basket costs a fraction of a hand-made one and does the same job, so demand falls away. A craft that cannot support a household will not attract anyone willing to learn it. The second cause matters more and is mentioned less. These skills are passed on by watching and correction over several years, not by instruction, and much of what the expert knows cannot be put into words. Knowing the moment a piece of wood is ready, or the sound that shows the temperature is right, lives in people rather than in books. If one generation does not learn it, there is nobody left to demonstrate it, and the loss is permanent in a way that losing a written technique is not.
That difference seems to me the right basis for deciding what to do. Keeping a craft alive simply because it is old, when the object it makes is worse and more expensive than the alternative, is sentimental and unlikely to survive once the funding stops. Keeping knowledge that cannot be recovered once it is gone is a completely different matter.
In practice this suggests two things. Where a skill is genuinely irrecoverable and still has a living practitioner, paid apprenticeships are worth the cost, because a person is the only possible record. Where it is not, careful recording, filmed and detailed and made while the expert can still be questioned, is a reasonable and far cheaper alternative.
The test is simple. Could this be learned again 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 second cause is the strong one and the essay says so - matters more and is mentioned less. Ranking your own points is a Band 7 and above habit.
- Tacit knowledge is explained without the term: the moment a piece of wood is ready, the sound that shows 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. That is the difference between an argument and a set of suggestions.
- The proposals are specific: paid 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.
- 303 words. Band 7 to 7.5, with plain vocabulary throughout.
Language worth borrowing
- The second cause matters more and is mentioned less.
- Ranks your points explicitly. Costs five words and lifts the paragraph.
- lives in people rather than in books
- A short phrase carrying the paragraph's whole idea.
- is sentimental and unlikely to survive once the funding stops
- Rejects a position on two grounds at once - one about value, one about practicality.
- a person is the only possible record
- A metaphor that argues rather than decorates.
- Could this be learned again from a record, or only from a person?
- Ending on a question is risky, but effective when the question is the essay's actual criterion.
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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