Should young children have smartphones
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
Some people think that children under the age of twelve should not be given their own smartphones. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Band 7 model answer (260 words)
It is increasingly common to see primary school children with their own smartphones, and many people argue that this should not happen before the age of twelve. I largely agree with this view, although I accept that a basic phone for safety is a reasonable exception.
The main reason for waiting is that smartphones expose children to content and pressures they are not ready to manage. Social media apps are designed for adult attention spans and adult judgement, yet a nine-year-old with a smartphone can access the same feeds, advertising and strangers as anyone else. Parental controls help, but they are easily bypassed, and many parents underestimate how quickly children learn to do so.
A second argument concerns development. Childhood is when the habits of concentration, play and face-to-face friendship are formed, and a device engineered to interrupt works directly against all three. Teachers frequently report that pupils with unrestricted phone access struggle to focus on tasks that offer no instant reward, which suggests the cost is real rather than imagined.
The strongest counter-argument is safety: parents want to reach their children and know where they are. This need is genuine, but it does not require a smartphone. A simple phone that only calls and sends messages provides the contact without the feeds, games and cameras that cause the problems.
In conclusion, I agree that children under twelve should not own smartphones, because the risks to their attention and wellbeing outweigh the convenience. Where contact is essential, a basic handset meets that need at far lower cost to the child.
Why this reaches Band 7
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Task Response
The position is stated in the introduction, qualified sensibly ("a basic phone for safety is a reasonable exception") and maintained to the end. The counter-argument is addressed rather than ignored, which strengthens rather than weakens the stance.
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Coherence and Cohesion
Each body paragraph carries one argument, and the counter-argument paragraph follows a clear concede-then-refute pattern ("This need is genuine, but...").
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Lexical Resource
Natural, less common phrasing such as "engineered to interrupt", "instant reward" and "at far lower cost to the child" shows flexibility beyond basic topic words.
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Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of structures, including concessives and comparative clauses, with errors that are rare and never block meaning.
The one fix to reach Band 7
A typical Band 6 attempt agrees or disagrees but treats the safety argument as if it did not exist. The single change that lifts it to Band 7 is to name the strongest opposing point and answer it directly, which makes the whole position more convincing.
Now check your own answer.
Paste your own attempt at this prompt and Examinerly names the single criterion keeping you below your target band, and shows the sentence-level fix. We never inflate your band.
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