Cambridge 9 Test 2 

Some people believe that unpaid community service should be a compulsory part of high school programs (for example, working for a charity, improving the neighborhood, or teaching sports to younger children).

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

These two tasks are different, and I will show the difference in this post.

The first task asks, “Do you agree or disagree?” Agree with what? Or disagree with what? The answer lies in the word ‘must’ in the task. It implies a very strong recommendation, which includes ALL leisure activities that children are involved with, and anything that has no educational component is viewed as unproductive. Strong views like this are easy to say no to. 

On the one hand, we can see how important it is that children do not waste their time and learn something. Schools rarely offer a curriculum that comprehensively covers all the capabilities of children and the future needs multi-skilled people. So, it makes sense that parents encourage children to use their time better by combining learning and entertainment – one example is learning how to play the piano. 

On the other hand, not all non-educational leisure activities are unproductive. They have intangible values that eventually reveal their influences in later life stages. For instance, playing freely in the park is an exercise in independent decision-making without relying on adults. 

From all this, we can conclude that parents must balance educational leisure pursuits and purely entertaining activities for their children. 

In this analysis, I stayed within the task's parameters and did not go beyond the task. My opinion is based on the keywords in the task. 

………………………………………………………….

The second task asks, “To what extent do you agree or disagree?” 

This one is a bit tricky because of the word ‘extent,’ which must be addressed equally as other words such as ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ in the question. It is not enough to say, “I completely agree.” Words such as ‘completely’ or ‘totally’ are not enough to cover ‘to what extent.’ We need to go a bit beyond the task to cover the extent to which we agree or disagree. 

To demonstrate, let us look at the second task. What is the question? 

Should unpaid community service be a compulsory part of high school programs? Yes or no? 

If our answer is yes (that unpaid community service should be a compulsory part of high school programs), then we need to present one reason and support it in body 1. After that, to cover the ‘extent’ part, we need to go beyond the task a bit by looking at the word ‘compulsory.’ The other side of this word is ‘optional,’ right? So, to show that we completely agree, in body 2, we can argue why we think unpaid community service should NOT be an optional part of high school programs. That is how we can say that we COMPLETELY agree with this suggestion. 

In summary, ‘to what extent’ tasks are different because they allow us to interpret the keywords, go beyond the task, and add to the statement in the task.

 

I hope this has been helpful.