Should elderly parents live with family or in care homes
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 elderly parents should live with their adult children, while others believe professional care homes are a better option. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
Band 7 model answer (269 words)
As populations age, families increasingly face a difficult choice: care for elderly parents at home, or entrust them to professional institutions. Each option answers a real need, but I believe the family home should be the default wherever health allows.
Those who favour living with family emphasise emotional wellbeing. Elderly people who share a home with their children and grandchildren keep their place in daily life: they are consulted, included in meals and celebrations, and needed. This sense of belonging matters enormously at an age when friends are passing away and the wider world is shrinking. In many cultures it is also seen as a debt of gratitude, repaying decades of parental sacrifice with presence rather than payments.
Supporters of care homes respond with a practical argument. Modern seniors may live for years with conditions such as dementia that require round-the-clock skilled attention, which loving but untrained relatives simply cannot provide. A good facility offers professional nursing, safety equipment and the company of people the same age, and visiting relatives can then spend their limited time on affection instead of exhausting physical care.
In my view, these positions suit different situations rather than competing directly. While serious medical needs justify professional care, the far more common case is a parent who is simply old, and such parents lose more than they gain when moved out of family life. Institutional care should be the exception demanded by illness, not the convenient norm.
In conclusion, care homes are invaluable when health problems overwhelm a family's capacity, but wherever possible elderly parents belong with their children, surrounded by the life they built.
Why this reaches Band 7
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Task Response
Both views are presented at full strength, and the opinion resolves them intelligently by distinguishing cases ("the exception demanded by illness, not the convenient norm") instead of flatly endorsing one side.
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Coherence and Cohesion
A clean view-view-resolution structure, with cohesion carried by meaning: "respond with a practical argument" tells the reader exactly how the paragraphs relate.
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Lexical Resource
Less common collocations such as "round-the-clock skilled attention", "a debt of gratitude" and "the wider world is shrinking" are precise and appropriate to the topic's emotional register.
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Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Long, well-managed sentences with embedded clauses and parallel forms ("consulted, included... and needed"), maintained with very few errors.
The one fix to reach Band 7
Band 6 answers usually declare that family care shows love and care homes are for people who are busy. The Band 7 difference is conceding the genuinely hard case, serious illness that families cannot handle, and building your opinion around when each option applies.
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