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Written by IELTS Mentor

IELTS Writing Task 2/ IELTS Essay:

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

In some large cities, people have to pay a fee when they drive their cars into the city centre, in a policy to reduce the number of cars in the city.

Give reasons in support of and opposing this policy, and give your own opinion.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

You should write at least 250 words.

Sample Answer 1:
In these days and ages, one of the major problems faced by developed cities is traffic congestion due to the staggering amount of car owners in these areas. As a result, drivers are charged a fee before entering the city centre in some places.
    
Undoubtedly, this policy certainly comes with some positive impacts on the traffic. It is evident that with an extra charge applied upon driving into the city centre, drivers tend to become more serious while considering the necessity of getting into the town centre. Besides, activities, like carpooling or taking public transportation, are also practised more often by people. Consequently, there would be a dramatic improvement on the traffic condition as congestion is likely to occur less frequently.

However, in my opinion, the detrimental sides of this policy definitely outweigh the benefits. First of all, it is logistically out of the question for the government to install the required equipment as it involves plenty of funds. On the other hand, this policy would also directly increase the financial burden of people. It is due to the fact that there are always people whose jobs need them to be constantly travelling around the city. While the rich drivers may be unaffected by this policy, those workers with an average amount of income would surely be troubled by the extra fee.

To conclude, the solution mentioned above is way too extreme to be practised. In strong contrast, the government should provide free or low-cost public transportation into the city centre during peak hours so that it would end up benefiting more people.

[by Eric Tay ]

Sample Answer 2:
As is commonly understood in the big cities people need to pay some money when they are driving a car to reach the centre of the city. This has the purpose of reducing the total of cars which operated around the city. It is believed that a policy of reducing the number of cars will bring positive and negative impact for all the people. Personally, I will explain my perspective by giving supporting and opposing reason.

Firstly, as we know that the number of the car in the city bring many advantages. If the cities applied a policy or rule about driving cars, some of the problems such as air pollution as well as traffic jam automatically reduced. At the same time, the policy will help the government in developing the percentage of public transportation used by the people. As a result industry of public transportation growing rapidly. Take Tokyo for instance, Tokyo applied a policy if the people bring their own car to the city centre. Caused by this policy, Tokyo grew significantly to become the smartest city with the lowest percentage of air pollution and traffic jam, development of public transportation reveals a sophisticated trend.  From this example, we can see that policy bring advantages to a city, even in the development of the city itself and public transportation business.

On the other hand, the role by applied fee brings disadvantages for a city. In some countries this policy impact on the automotive industry. The trend of people to buy a car significantly decreased, as a result income and development of business automotive shows bad trend day by day. This case happens in South Africa when people must pay or take some role to drive their cars to the city centre. There are 65% of the total of the people who lived in Cape Town decided not to buy cars. Because most of them think that buy a car is useless. From this case, many automotive industries have collapsed and effect on the market and the economic development in South Africa.

In conclusion, the policy is important to be applied in a city related to bringing a car. However, the policy must be considered the advantages and disadvantages. The government and the public sector, as well as business sectors in the transportation business, need to collaborate together, make arrangement and right policy who will bring good advantages to all sector. In this case government, people and businessman.

[by Ikhsan Putra ]

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