Duolingo English Test Writing Practice

Strong answer — score range 130-150

Shoppers are crowded around a fruit and vegetable stall on a city pavement. A young man in a light T-shirt stands at the counter with his back to the camera, and two women wait beside him, one holding a small carton and one with a handbag over her shoulder. Bunches of bananas hang from a rail above the produce, and boxes of avocados and other fruit are stacked on the front of the stall. A large umbrella and a shop awning keep the sun off the goods, and a child in a tracksuit is half hidden behind the customers on the right.

Weak answer, and why — score range 60-95

This is a picture of a shop. There are many people. They buy some fruits. The weather is good.

The weak answer names things. The strong one puts people in positions, gives them clothes and actions, and reads the scene left to right. That difference is the Content criterion.

Strong answer — score range 130-150

A chef in a white jacket and a tall hat is working at a gas hob in a narrow restaurant kitchen. He is holding the handle of a wok with his right hand while flames rise out of it, and he is carrying a tin in his left hand. Pans and cooking pots are stacked on a shelf above the hob, and the tiled wall behind him is lined with bottles of oil and sauce. He is looking straight at the camera and seems completely unconcerned by the fire, which suggests this is a normal part of the dish he is cooking.

Weak answer, and why — score range 60-95

A man cooks in the kitchen. There is fire. He wears white clothes and a hat. It is a restaurant.

Notice the last sentence of the strong answer. Saying what the scene suggests, not just what it contains, is what pushes Content from "describes the image" to "fully describes the image".

Model answer, part 1 — score range 130-150

Of the three, the telephone changed daily life most, because it was the first invention that let people be in two places at once. Before it, anything urgent moved at the speed of a person carrying it: a doctor was fetched, a message was delivered, a family heard news days after it happened. The telephone collapsed that delay to nothing. It also changed how work was organised. A company no longer had to keep everyone who needed to talk to each other in the same building, which is why offices, and later whole industries, could spread across cities and then across countries. Perhaps the quietest change is social. Relationships that would once have ended when someone moved away could now be kept alive at a distance, and the idea that you should be reachable, which we now take completely for granted, begins here.

Model answer, part 2 — score range 130-150

The same reachability has a cost. Because a call can arrive at any hour, the boundary between work and private life became negotiable, and the modern expectation that an employee answers in the evening starts with the telephone rather than with email. It also made a certain kind of harm much easier: nuisance calls, fraud aimed at older people, and the constant low-level intrusion of sales calls all depend on being able to reach a stranger without their consent. And there is a subtler loss. When talking became cheap, letters became rare, and with them went a habit of careful, considered writing that nothing has really replaced.

Model answer — 214 words — score range 130-150

I agree, though not for the reason the claim usually assumes. A group is not better because more people means more effort; it is better because disagreement is built into it. When three people look over the same plan, one of them will object, and that objection is free information that a person working alone has to buy with wasted weeks. The second advantage is coverage. Nobody is equally good at research, at writing and at standing up to present, so a group can put people where they are strongest instead of asking one person to be adequate at everything. There are tasks a group actively damages, though. Anything that needs long, unbroken concentration suffers from meetings, and a group with no clear owner for each piece tends to produce a report that reads as though it were written by committee, because it was. In my last year at school we ran a science project with four people and no division of labour, and we finished it the night before by doing half of it twice. The rule I would draw from that is narrower than the prompt: groups are better at deciding and individuals are better at producing. Most real work needs both, and the mistake is picking one for the whole job.

Content and Discourse coherence are both strong: the position is qualified in the first sentence, each paragraph does one job, and the concession about concentration work is answered rather than dropped, so the close resolves the question instead of restating it. Grammar shows real range for five minutes under time pressure — a passive (“written by committee”), a subjunctive, a semicolon used correctly — and Lexis avoids the prompt’s own words, reaching for “coverage”, “division of labour” and “clear owner” instead of repeating “group work”.

Model answer — 230 words — score range 100-125

I agree with the opinion that working in a group gives better results than working alone. There are some reasons for my opinion. First, in a group there are many people, so there are many ideas. If one person has an idea and it is not good, another person can say a better idea. One person alone has only his own ideas and he can not see his mistakes easily. Second, in a group the work is divided. For example, in my university we did a project about recycling and we were four students. One student made the slides, one student searched information on the internet, and the other two wrote the text. If I did this project alone it will take much more time and I will be very tired. Also, working in a group is more interesting and you can learn from other people. Of course there are some problems too. Sometimes people in a group do not agree and they discuss for a long time, and sometimes one person does not do his part of the work. This is a disadvantage of group work. Then the other students must do his part also, and they are not happy about this situation. But in my opinion these problems are not so big. For these reasons I think that a group produces better results than one person working alone.

Content is on topic and the recycling project is a genuine example, but the development stops at listing: the “many people, many ideas” point is made three times and the concession is named without being answered. Discourse coherence rests on a mechanical First / Second / Also / For these reasons frame, Grammar stays almost entirely in simple sentences with a broken conditional (“If I did this project alone it will take”), and Lexis recycles the prompt’s “work in a group” and “better results” throughout, which caps lexical diversity.

Model answer — 208 words — score range 130-150

The memory I keep coming back to is the summer I spent at my grandmother’s village when I was nine. What I remember is not an event but a routine: being woken at six because the goats would not wait, walking down a lane that smelled of wet dust, and sitting on the step afterwards with bread and warm milk while my grandmother listened to radio news she could not really hear. Nothing about that summer was remarkable, and I think that is exactly why it stayed. It is the only stretch of my childhood that nobody was managing. There were no lessons to get to and no one asking what I intended to become, and I learnt there that a day could be shaped by the work it needed rather than by a timetable. It still matters for a plainer reason as well. Whenever I am close to giving up on something slow and unrewarding, I think about the goats, which did not care how I felt and had to be dealt with anyway. My grandmother died during my first year at university and the house was sold soon after. The memory is the last part of that place I still own, so I look after it.

Content is specific where weak answers are general: the concrete detail (six o’clock, the lane, the radio she could not hear) carries the description, and the “why it matters” half of the prompt gets two distinct answers rather than one sentiment. Discourse coherence moves from scene to reflection to present-day consequence without signposting, while Grammar handles narrative past, past perfect-free sequencing, a relative clause and a modal in the same answer, and Lexis chooses precisely (“stretch of my childhood”, “nobody was managing”) instead of reaching for the prompt’s “favourite memory”.

Model answer — 215 words — score range 100-125

My favourite childhood memory is when my family went to the sea for the first time. I was seven years old and I lived in a city far from the sea, so I never saw it before. My father had an old car and we drove all the day. I remember that I asked many times when we will arrive and my mother was a little angry with me. When we came to the beach I ran into the water immediately with my clothes. The water was very cold but I was very happy. My brother and me made a big castle from the sand and my father took a photo of us. In the evening we ate fish in a small restaurant and it was delicious. This memory is still important for me for some reasons. First, it was the first time I travelled far from my city, and after that I always wanted to see other places too. Second, my father worked very hard in that time and he did not have many free days, so this trip was special for him also. Now he is old and we can not travel like before. When I look at the photo of the sand castle I remember this happy day and I feel good.

Content covers both halves of the prompt and the story is easy to follow, but every detail is reported at the same flat level (“very cold”, “very happy”, “it was delicious”) and the significance is asserted rather than developed. Grammar is held back by repeated basic errors that do not block meaning — “I never saw it before”, “all the day”, “when we will arrive”, “My brother and me”, “in that time” — and Lexis leans on a small set of common adjectives and intensifiers, so lexical sophistication stays low even though spelling is clean.

Model answer — 209 words — score range 130-150

I largely agree, mainly because the two kinds of spending do not have the same long-term effect. A new road relieves congestion for a few years and then fills up again, because cheap driving encourages more driving; part of the demand it was built to serve is created by the road itself. Money spent on buses, trams and rail is not caught in that trap, since a full carriage is a sign of success rather than of failure. There is also the question of who benefits. People who cannot drive at all, whether because of age, disability or money, usually have the weakest claim on a government’s attention and the strongest need for a service they can afford, and a new road is in effect a subsidy to whoever already owns a car. I would not make the preference absolute. Freight still moves by lorry, thinly populated areas will never support a frequent timetable, and a bypass round a crowded town centre can do more for the air there than an extra bus route would. So my position is a priority rather than a ban: existing roads should be maintained and occasionally redirected, while new money goes to the network that can carry more people without taking more space.

Content answers the “to what extent” framing properly — a graded position, two developed reasons (induced demand, and who is excluded from driving) and three real exceptions rather than a token one — and the appropriacy of register suits an argument an admissions reader would take seriously. Grammar sustains complex subordination, a passive and a concessive structure across long sentences without losing accuracy, and Lexis is precise and non-repetitive (“subsidy”, “freight”, “bypass”, “frequent timetable”), with Discourse coherence carried by the shift from claim to qualification to settled position.

Model answer — 228 words — score range 100-125

I agree that governments should spend more money on public transport than on building new roads. In my city there is a big problem with the traffic. In the morning the cars do not move and people lose one hour or more to go to the work. The government built a new road two years ago, but after some months the situation was the same again, because more people bought cars and used this new road. So I think building roads is not a good solution for this problem. Public transport is better for some reasons. First, a bus or a metro can carry many people in the same time, so there is less cars in the street. Second, it is cheaper for normal people. Not everybody can buy a car, especially students and old people, so they need a good bus system. Third, it is better for the air, because less cars means less pollution. But I must say that roads are also necessary. Trucks need roads to bring the products to the shops, and villages need roads too, so the government can not stop building roads completely. I only think that the money of the government must help first the people who do not have a car. However, if I must choose one, I choose public transport, because it helps more people with the same money.

Content is relevant and the local observation about the new road filling up is a genuine idea, but the three reasons are each given one sentence and the second and third overlap, so development is thin against the “to what extent” demand. Discourse coherence depends entirely on First / Second / Third / However; Grammar repeats the same countability and preposition errors (“there is less cars”, “less cars means”, “go to the work”, “in the same time”); and Lexis stays inside the prompt’s vocabulary, repeating “roads” and “public transport” rather than finding alternatives.

Model answer — 209 words — score range 130-150

The country I would most like to understand properly is Japan, and not for the reasons that usually get listed. What interests me is how a society manages to be very modern and very conservative at the same time. From the outside those look like forces that should pull a country apart, and yet they seem to sit beside each other there without much visible strain. I would want to know how that feels from inside an ordinary family rather than how it is described in a documentary. The second thing I would want to find out is more practical. Japan has an ageing population and a shrinking workforce, which is the problem my own country will face in twenty years, and it has reached it first. What has been tried, what was quietly abandoned, and what people actually think of the results would tell me a great deal about what is coming for us. I would also like to learn enough of the language to read a newspaper. Translation tends to flatten the parts of an argument that depend on tone, and reading about a place is not the same as being able to follow a disagreement inside it. That is the gap I would want to close.

Content takes an unusual angle on a descriptive prompt and answers both halves — what interests the writer, and three specific things they would find out — with the demographic point grounded in a reason rather than asserted. Grammar carries conditionals, passives (“what was quietly abandoned”) and future reference in one answer, Lexis is accurate and varied (“shrinking workforce”, “visible strain”, “flatten”) without repeating the prompt’s “find out”, and Discourse coherence builds to a closing sentence that names the gap the whole answer has been circling.

Model answer — 192 words — score range 100-125

The country I would like to know more about is Canada. I already know some things about Canada. It is a very big country, the winter is very cold, and many people from different countries live there. But I do not know many details, so I want to learn more. First, I am interested in the nature of Canada. I saw photos of the mountains and the forests and they are very beautiful. I would like to know which places are the best for visiting and if it is possible to see wild animals there. Second, I am interested in the universities, because I want to study abroad in the future. I want to find out which universities are good for engineering and how much money a student needs for one year. Also I would like to know if it is difficult for a foreign student to find a part time job. Finally, Canada has two official languages, English and French, and I would like to know if normal people speak the both languages or only in some regions. For these reasons Canada is the country I want to know more about.

Content answers the prompt and the questions asked are reasonable, but they are listed rather than explained: nothing says why the universities or the two languages interest this writer, so the “what interests you” half stays undeveloped and the closing sentence only repeats the opening. Discourse coherence is a bare First / Second / Also / Finally chain, Grammar is dominated by “I am interested in” and “I would like to know” with a determiner slip (“the both languages”), and Lexis repeats “very”, “beautiful” and “know more about” from the prompt itself.

Model answer — 213 words — score range 130-150

The question is put as a choice, and that is where I think it goes wrong. The useful distinction is not practical against academic but narrow against general. A practical skill is valuable precisely because it is specific: a trained electrician or a nurse can do something the next person cannot, and can do it the week after qualifying. That is a real advantage, and the snobbery that treats such training as a second-best option has done it a lot of damage. What a practical skill does not give you is a way of handling a question nobody has answered yet. An academic subject trains you to read two conflicting accounts, work out which part of each is evidence, and change your mind for a good reason. That sounds abstract until the trade you learnt is reorganised around a new tool and you have to decide what to learn next. My own preference is for the academic route, but only because I want to work in research, where the raw material is other people’s arguments. If I wanted to build things that stand up, I would train instead, and I would not think of it as a smaller ambition. What the work demands decides it, not which kind of learning is worth more.

Content earns its band by reframing the prompt rather than taking a side and listing reasons: the narrow-versus-general distinction is defended, illustrated with the retraining case, and then applied honestly to the writer’s own position. Grammar mixes a hypothetical conditional, a passive (“is reorganised”) and a fronted subject-clause close without accuracy slipping, and Lexis is both varied and exact (“snobbery”, “qualifying”, “trade”, “raw material”), while Discourse coherence keeps one argument moving instead of restarting at each paragraph.

Model answer — 204 words — score range 100-125

In my opinion it is better to learn a practical skill than to study an academic subject, but it depends on the person. I will explain my reasons. The first reason is the job. If you learn a practical skill like cooking, repairing cars or programming, you can start to work very fast and companies need these people. My cousin studied to be an electrician for two years and now he has a lot of work and a good salary. My other cousin studied history at the university for five years, and now he works in a shop because it is difficult to find a job in his field. The second reason is the money. The university is expensive in my country and many families can not pay it. A practical course is shorter and cheaper, so it is more realistic for normal people. However, academic subjects are also important. Doctors, engineers and teachers must study at the university, so we can not say that academic study is useless. In conclusion, I think a practical skill is better for the most of people, because you can find a job faster, but the best choice depends on what you want to do in your life.

Content is relevant and the two cousins give the answer real evidence, but the reasons are declared (“The first reason is the job”) rather than argued, and the concession about doctors and teachers is added and then left, so the conclusion hedges instead of resolving. Grammar keeps to simple and lightly compound sentences in one tense, with article errors recurring (“at the university”, “The university is expensive”, “the most of people”), and Lexis borrows “practical skill” and “academic subject” straight from the prompt on every mention.