IELTS Writing Sample #156
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Write about the following topic:
In most countries multinational
companies and their products are becoming more and more important.
This trend is seriously damaging our quality of life.
Do you agree or disagree?
Write at least 250 words.
Writing Tip
In IELTS Writing Task 2, you might want to talk about a common opinion
or fact. For example, you might say, Many people say that multinational
companies and globalisation are making societies more open. However,
if you want to be more formal, it is good to use the structure
It + passive + clause: It is said that multinational
companies and globalisation are making societies more open.
Verbs which are often used in this way are: say, agree, suppose,
know, think, believe, expect, feel, report, estimate
Model answer
The writer has tried
to avoid repeating the same words too often in the answer.
Read the sample again and find synonyms or phrases later in the answer with similar
meanings to the underlined words.
Multinational companies nowadays find it
easy both to market their
products all
over the world and set up
factories wherever they find
it convenient. In my opinion this has had
a harmful effect on our quality
of life in three main areas.
The first area is their products. Supporters of globalization would argue that multinational
companies make high-quality goods available to more people. While this may be true
to some extent, it also means that we have less choice of products to
buy. When powerful
multinational companies invade local markets with their goods, they often
force local
companies with fewer resources to go out of business. In consequence, we are obliged
to buy multinational products whether we like them or not.
This brings me to my second point. It is sometimes said that multinational companies
and globalisation are making societies more open. This may be true. However, I would
argue that
as a result the human race is losing its cultural diversity. If we consumed
different products,
societies all over the world
would be more varied. This can be seen by the fact that we all shop in
similar multinational
supermarkets and buy identical products wherever we live.
Thirdly, defenders of multinational companies often point out that they provide
employment.
Although this is undoubtedly true, it also means that we have become more
dependent
on them, which in turn makes us more vulnerable to their decisions. When, for example,
a multinational decides to move its production facilities to another country, this
has an adverse effect on its workers who lose their jobs.
All in all, I believe that if we as voters pressured our governments to make multinational
companies more responsible and to protect local producers from outside competition,
we could have the benefits of globalisation without its disadvantages.
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