I wrote this band 8.5 essay for a task from Cambridge IELTS 20 Academic. I spent about 10 minutes developing and refining the ideas, 15 minutes writing, and about 15 minutes revising and editing the essay.
Marking was done by Perplexity AI that I personally trained, supervised and audited. As usual, the latest version of the IELTS writing band descriptors (2023) and a number of marked sample essays and model answers from Cambridge IELTS series of books were used to train and calibrate the AI model.
These days, if people have health problems, many do not visit doctors. They try to get better at home by themselves.
Is this a positive or negative development?
Nowadays, more and more individuals try to treat their health conditions on their own at home instead of visiting physicians and health professionals. I strongly believe this to be detrimental, especially to their health.
Unlike doctors who spend years studying medical sciences, including human anatomy, physiology, pathology and pharmacology, ordinary people have little up-to-date knowledge of the causes of each illness and the correct application of medicine. What they know is generally restricted to folk remedies, as well as myths and misinterpretations. This makes them prone to dire errors of judgement in their attempts at self-treatment. For example, they may make the wrong diagnosis or take the wrong drug or dosage, which could well result in the deterioration of their conditions or even prove fatal.
Let us not forget either that most serious and contagious conditions are not recognizable to the untrained eye. Headaches, fevers or coughs, though mostly harmless, may actually be symptoms of transmissible viral diseases like Ebola or Covid. Most ordinary people are either unaware of such diseases, or underestimate their symptoms with ignorant optimism. They infect others, each of whom then infect others, and a situation that could have been recognized and contained by medical professionals, develops into an epidemic or a global pandemic.
Some may argue that people save money when they treat their own illnesses at home, but I believe the costs that ensue their maltreatment would far outweigh such meager savings. Therefore, I would still argue that the trend toward self-therapy and avoiding physicians is not to the benefit of individuals and global health.
length: 261 words
TR 8-9 | CC 8-9 | LR 8 | GRA 8
I had a very interesting discussion with Perplexity about the scoring of this essay, which I will share in full as a PDF file. The discussion will show why one should not rely solely on the scoring of AI models, and how their scores can sometimes be flawed just like those of any untrained or insufficiently experienced person. At the same time, you will see how an AI model can help you pinpoint and explain the issues with vocabulary and grammar.
Discussion with Perplexity AI: 