Band 9 model answer
Across the world, age-old crafts that once defined entire communities are quietly vanishing, displaced by the efficiency of industrial production. This essay will examine why such skills are dying out and suggest practical measures to safeguard them.
The principal cause is economic. Hand-made goods take time and expertise to produce, making them far more expensive than their factory-made equivalents. Few consumers, conscious of price, will pay a premium for a hand-thrown bowl when a mass-produced one costs a fraction as much. A second cause is generational. As young people migrate to cities in search of better-paid work, they rarely inherit the painstaking knowledge of their parents, and so the chain of transmission, built up over centuries, is broken within a single generation.
Reversing this decline demands deliberate intervention on several fronts. Governments and cultural organisations could fund apprenticeships that pay artisans to train successors, ensuring that expertise is passed on rather than lost. Equally important is creating demand: marketing handmade products as distinctive, sustainable and authentic can persuade buyers to value craftsmanship over convenience. Tourism, too, offers an opportunity, since visitors are often eager to watch traditional methods and purchase genuine local work.
Education provides the most enduring solution. By introducing children to traditional crafts in schools and through community workshops, societies can rekindle interest before these skills disappear entirely. In conclusion, the erosion of traditional crafts stems chiefly from economic pressure and broken generational links, but with targeted funding, clever marketing and educational revival, much of this irreplaceable heritage can still be rescued from extinction.
Examiner’s notes
- Task Response: the two-part prompt is answered systematically, with one paragraph isolating causes ('economic', 'generational') and the next two proposing solutions, and the conclusion recaps both halves accurately.
- Coherence and Cohesion: ordering devices like 'The principal cause', 'A second cause' and 'Equally important' guide the reader, and pronoun reference ('such skills', 'these skills') maintains topic continuity.
- Lexical Resource: specialised and evaluative vocabulary such as 'chain of transmission', 'hand-thrown bowl', 'rekindle interest' and 'irreplaceable heritage' conveys meaning precisely and idiomatically.