Should young people learn a practical trade instead of going to university?
An IELTS Writing Task 2 advantages and disadvantages essay on whether school leavers should learn a trade rather than attend university, with a band 9 model answer, a plan, and notes on how it meets each marking criterion.
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Do this before you scroll. The model answer below will make sense as a comparison and not much use as a template.
Task 2 · 40 minutes · at least 250 words
Some people believe that school leavers should learn a practical trade such as plumbing, electrical work or carpentry rather than going to university. Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
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How to plan this one
- 1"Outweigh" means a verdict is required, in the introduction and the conclusion, with the reason one side is heavier.
- 2Argue the side you will reject properly. One paragraph each, and the losing side needs a real case or the verdict looks unearned.
- 3The verdict is strongest when it explains the relationship between the sides: which advantage is certain and which disadvantage is conditional, or who each applies to.
- 4Avoid the trap of making it about all young people. The question is about "school leavers" choosing; a verdict can be conditional on the person.
Model answer
Written at the top of the band. Read it for the moves it makes, not the opinions it holds: a memorised essay on this topic will not fit the prompt you actually get.
The assumption that university is the natural next step after school is weaker than it was a generation ago, and the argument that a trade is the better choice deserves a fair hearing. Having weighed it, I think the advantages of learning a trade outweigh the disadvantages for a large share of school leavers, though not for all of them.
The advantages are concrete and immediate. A trainee electrician or plumber earns while learning, finishes without debt, and enters a labour market in which skilled trades are in short supply almost everywhere, so that a qualified tradesperson in Pakistan, the Gulf or Europe can find work within days rather than months. The work cannot be outsourced or, for the foreseeable future, automated, which gives it a security that many graduate careers have lost. And the path to running one's own business is short: a tradesperson with a few years' experience and a van is an employer.
The disadvantages are real but narrower than they appear. A degree opens professions that a trade cannot, medicine, law, engineering and academic research among them, and it develops general abilities in writing, analysis and abstraction that a specific trade does not. For a school leaver who wants one of those professions, or who does not yet know what they want, a trade closes doors that a degree keeps open. There is also a persistent social prejudice against manual work, particularly in South Asia, which affects marriage prospects and status in ways that are unfair but not imaginary.
The two sides differ in kind. The advantages of a trade apply to almost anyone who takes one up; the disadvantages apply mainly to the minority whose ambitions genuinely require a degree. For the majority of school leavers, who will not become doctors or engineers whichever path they choose, the trade delivers more, sooner, at less cost.
That is why the advantages outweigh the disadvantages on balance, and why the question a school leaver should ask is not which path is better but which of them they actually are.
Why it scores, criterion by criterion
Task Response
The verdict is stated in the introduction with a qualification that is then justified, and restated in the conclusion with the reason. Both sides receive a full paragraph with developed, specific arguments; the disadvantages are argued seriously, including a culturally specific one. The fourth paragraph does the weighing explicitly, which is what "outweigh" asks for.
Coherence and Cohesion
The essay moves advantages, disadvantages, weighing, verdict, with each paragraph opening on its function ("The advantages are", "The disadvantages are real but", "The two sides differ in kind"). Cohesion is done by reference and parallel structure rather than by connectives; "That is why" in the conclusion points to the argument just made.
Lexical Resource
Precise and varied: "deserves a fair hearing", "in short supply", "outsourced", "automated", "abstraction", "persistent social prejudice", "differ in kind". Paraphrase of "practical trade" as "skilled trades", "manual work", "a tradesperson". Every less common item is used in its exact sense.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range under control: an appositive list embedded with commas ("medicine, law, engineering and academic research among them"), a semicolon balancing two clauses in paragraph four, a "not which ... but which ..." structure in the final sentence. Sentences vary from four words to forty with no errors.
Language worth stealing
Each of these carries a trap as well as a use, so the note matters as much as the phrase.
- Having weighed it, I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for X, though not for Y
- A verdict with a scope. "Having weighed it" signals a considered position; the "though not for" clause makes the essay's structure honest.
- The disadvantages are real but narrower than they appear
- Opens the losing side without dismissing it. You then have to show the narrowness, which is the weighing.
- The two sides differ in kind
- The sentence that turns a list into a verdict. Follow it with how they differ: who each applies to, or which is certain and which conditional.
- the question is not which path is better but which of them they actually are
- A closing reframe. Use sparingly; one such sentence at the end reads as insight, two read as rhetoric.
More Task 2 practice
Last updated 18 September 2026.