Task
Being a celebrity- such as a famous film star or sports personality- brings problems as well as benefits.
Do you think that being a celebrity brings more benefits or more problems?
Candidate’s Answer
This is an answer written by a candidate who achieved a Band 6.0 score.
Being a celebrity was not always the easiest way of life. Of course besides all the advanteges of being rich, loved and being famous there are many disadvantiges, that we have to take into consideration. So, after all it is a quite hard question, and we cannot give an easy answer.
Let’s just think of the celebrities, and try to get a few benefits of being well-known. Some of them had had a very long way until they reached their part of life when they are celebrities.
But if we just look into their everydays, we can say that they have a very good accommodation and lifestyle: they have an income of what everyone is dreaming, they live in huge houses, they can buy all the cars they want.
But as the saying says: money is nothing, even they are rich, their personal life is not always so beautiful as it seems. Let’s just remember the famous teenager singer Britney Spears. In the beginning she was just like a young girl that everyone wanted to follow. But as time went on, she had some growing personal life problems. She was seen in nightclubs wearing the least dress, once she cut her hair bald, she had alcohol and drug problems. Anyway, being a celebrity is not often easy and beautiful!
Let’s just mention the paparazzos. A celebrity cannot go outside his/her house to pick his/her morning newspaper without being photographed. They have to be very careful about their private life, because their fans are following them, and they always have to behave perfectly! And since no one of us is perfect, their fans are quite often disappointed.
After all, taking into the consideration all the advanteges and disadvantiges, we should say that being a celebrity is not always easy!
Examiner’s Comment
This answer addresses all parts of the task, though the disadvantages of fame are covered more fully than the advantages. Main ideas are relevant, though the answer would be better if they were developed further. The conclusions drawn are at times repetitive.The organisation of ideas is coherent and some are linked effectively, but the openings of paragraphs 2,3,4 and 5 show some limitations. Paragraphs 2 and 3 do not develop a central topic well. Vocabulary is adequate for the task, although inappropriacies indicate that the range is restricted. However, the errors which occur in word choice and spelling do not prevent meaning being communicated. Simple and complex sentence forms are used, and although a number of inaccuracies are noticeable in structure and punctuation, communication is rarely affected.
