Causes and solutions for unhealthy diets
This is a model answer written to show what a Band 7 response looks like against the marking criteria. It is a worked example, not a graded submission. To see your own band, paste your writing into the free checker.
The prompt
In many countries people are eating less healthily than they did in the past, leading to a rise in diet related illness. What are the causes of this problem, and what can be done to solve it?
Band 7 model answer (268 words)
In many parts of the world, diets have become noticeably less healthy, and illnesses linked to poor eating are on the rise. This essay will examine the main causes of this trend and suggest what can be done about it.
There are two main causes of this problem. The first is the wide availability of cheap processed food. Fast food and ready meals are now quicker and often cheaper than cooking from fresh ingredients, so busy families turn to them out of convenience, even though they are high in sugar, salt and fat. A second cause is the increasingly hectic pace of modern life. Many people work long hours and feel they have no time to prepare proper meals, so they grab whatever is fast and filling instead. Home cooking, once a daily habit, has become something many families rarely have time for.
Fortunately, several measures could reverse this trend. The most effective solution is education, teaching children in school how to cook simple, healthy meals and helping them understand what processed food does to the body. Governments can strengthen this by taxing the most unhealthy products and using the money to make fresh fruit and vegetables cheaper, so that the healthy choice also becomes the affordable one. Clearer labelling on packaging would also help people see quickly how much sugar and salt they are eating.
In conclusion, poorer diets are largely caused by cheap processed food and busy lifestyles. The problem can be tackled by teaching cooking in schools, taxing unhealthy products, and making fresh food more affordable, so that eating well becomes both easy and cheap.
Why this reaches Band 7
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Task Response
Both parts of the task are answered: two clear causes and solutions that address them directly, each developed with a short explanation, which is what lifts a problem and solution essay to Band 7.
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Coherence and Cohesion
Causes and solutions sit in their own paragraphs, and linking such as "A second cause" and "The most effective solution" keeps the logic easy to follow.
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Lexical Resource
Accurate topic vocabulary such as "the wide availability of cheap processed food", "the increasingly hectic pace of modern life" and "labelling".
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Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of complex structures and purpose clauses ("so that the healthy choice also becomes the affordable one") with few errors.
The one fix to reach Band 7
A Band 6 problem and solution essay often lists solutions that do not connect to the causes it gave. The single change that reaches Band 7 is to tie each solution to a cause you named, for example answering cheap processed food with taxes and cheaper fresh food, so the essay reads as one joined-up argument.
Now check your own answer.
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