Model Essay 3: Working from Home
Question type: advantages and disadvantages. The wording asks whether the advantages outweigh - so a balanced list without a verdict cannot reach Band 7.
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
An increasing number of people now work from home rather than travelling to an office.
Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?
Write at least 250 words.
Read the wording before you plan
Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? requires a verdict: you must say which is greater and why.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages requires only a balanced account, and adding a strong verdict is not penalised but is not required.
These two wordings look almost identical and are marked differently. Candidates lose a band by answering the wrong one.
The plan
| Paragraph | Content |
|---|---|
| Introduction | Verdict stated immediately: advantages outweigh, but only for certain kinds of work and certain stages of a career. A qualified verdict is still a verdict. |
| Body 1 | Advantages: time recovered from commuting, and control over when concentrated work happens. |
| Body 2 | Disadvantages: the loss of unplanned contact, which falls hardest on new and junior staff. |
| Body 3 | Why the balance still favours home working - and why the disadvantage is fixable while the commute is not. |
| Conclusion | Restate the verdict with its condition attached. |
The model essay
Question: An increasing number of people now work from home rather than travelling to an office. Do the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?
Working from home has changed in a few years from an unusual arrangement into an ordinary one. In my view its advantages are greater, although this depends a great deal on the type of work and on how experienced the worker is.
The clearest advantage is the time that is saved. A journey of an hour each way uses about ten hours a week. That time is not simply lost; it is also unpleasant, which is why people who stop travelling to work often report feeling much better than the saved hours alone would explain. A second advantage is control. Offices force everyone into the same daily rhythm, and this suits some people badly. At home, someone who thinks clearly early in the morning can use that time for difficult work instead of spending it on a train.
The main disadvantage is the loss of unplanned contact. A great deal of useful information moves around an office informally: a remark overheard, a quick question, a small misunderstanding corrected before it grows. None of this happens in a calendar. The cost falls most heavily on people who are new to a job, because they learn by watching others and by asking questions that are too small to arrange a meeting for.
That disadvantage is real, but it seems to me easier to solve than the alternative. Companies can bring people together on purpose, with a fixed day each week or longer periods together for new staff, and recover much of what is lost. Nothing similar can be done about a daily journey.
For most experienced workers in most office jobs, therefore, the advantages clearly outweigh the disadvantages, provided that employers take the isolation of newer colleagues seriously.
Why this answer works
- The verdict is in the introduction and repeated in the conclusion, with the same condition attached both times. The question asks do they outweigh? and the essay answers it twice.
- A qualified verdict is still a verdict. In my view its advantages are greater, although this depends a great deal on the type of work is a clear answer. What would fail is there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides.
- The fourth paragraph is what earns the higher band, because it does the weighing rather than leaving the reader to do it. Most candidates list advantages, list disadvantages, then assert a conclusion nothing in the essay supports.
- The comparison is made on a stated criterion - which problem can actually be solved - rather than on the number of points.
- Concrete illustration without invented data: about ten hours a week is arithmetic from the essay's own premise, not a statistic about the world.
- Plain vocabulary throughout. There is no unusual word anywhere in this essay, and it would still score well, because Task Response and Coherence are two of the four criteria.
- 286 words. Aimed at Band 7 to 7.5, with the decisive paragraph deliberately the shortest.
Language worth borrowing
- In my view its advantages are greater, although this depends a great deal on
- The verdict sentence. Learn the shape: verdict first, then the condition.
- That time is not simply lost; it is also unpleasant
- A semicolon used correctly to join two related statements - a cheap way to show range.
- None of this happens in a calendar.
- A short sentence after a long list. Rhythm is part of Coherence and Cohesion.
- easier to solve than the alternative
- Names the criterion you are weighing on, which is what turns a list into a verdict.
- provided that
- Attaches a condition to a verdict cleanly, and is more precise here than if.
Check your own attempt
- Did you give a verdict, or only a balanced list?
- Does your essay contain a paragraph that actually weighs the two sides against each other?
- Did you name the criterion on which you weighed them?
- Is your conclusion's verdict the same as your introduction's?
- Are you between 260 and 300 words?
Now try this variation
Many companies now recruit staff from anywhere in the world rather than from the local area. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages.
Note the different instruction: this one asks you to discuss, not to decide. A balanced account is sufficient, and forcing a verdict is not what is being tested. Practise noticing the difference.
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