Old Buildings: Preserve or Replace? Essay (Band 9)
Band-9 discuss essay on preserving historic buildings versus modern development, with criteria breakdown and heritage vocabulary.
Some people think old buildings should be preserved, while others believe they should be replaced with modern structures. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
A Band-9 model answer
Streetscapes force a choice between memory and modernity, and cities worldwide answer differently. I favor selective preservation: protect structures of genuine significance, replace the rest with architecture worthy of the future.
Preservationists argue, rightly, that old buildings anchor identity. A city's historic quarter tells residents who they are in ways glass towers cannot; tourists pay premiums to walk such streets, funding local economies. Demolition is irreversible — once a century-old facade falls, no replica restores authenticity. Each lost building narrows the story a place can tell about itself.
Modernizers counter with human need. Heritage protections freeze housing supply in growing cities, inflating rents that punish the living to honor the dead. Old structures also perform badly: poor insulation, no elevators, seismic vulnerability. A preserved slum is still a slum. Societies must house their people before curating their streets — shelter outranks sentiment.
Selectivity resolves the standoff with two tests: architectural distinction and adaptive potential. Genuinely significant buildings — the exceptional, the irreplaceable — deserve protection and public money. The merely old should yield to well-designed successors, ideally required to respect street scale. Cities are living documents, edited by every generation; preservation should curate the best chapters, not freeze the whole book.
(250 words)
Examiner notes: why Band 9
Task Response (9): Preservation and replacement both argued with force (identity economics vs housing and safety), resolved in a two-test selectivity framework — specific, applicable, brave.
Coherence & Cohesion (9): "Anchor identity" vs "human need" paragraphs mirror; the resolution paragraph applies tests rather than summarizing. Irreversibility motifs recur cohesively.
Lexical Resource (9): Heritage precision: "streetscapes," "anchor identity," "adaptive potential," "seismic vulnerability," "curating streets." Formal without stiffness.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy (9): Em-dash qualifications, colon-led resolutions, concessive structures. Exact punctuation throughout.
High-scoring phrases
- memory and modernity — debate in two nouns
- anchor identity — heritage as stability
- honor the dead vs house the living — priority contrast
- preserved slum is still a slum — provocative precision
- living documents — cities as evolving texts
- curate chapters, not freeze books — selectivity metaphor close
Quick answers
How do I handle heritage topics without local knowledge?
Argue from universal principles: identity, tourism economics, housing need. Principles travel; only examples need localizing.
Is selective preservation a strong opinion?
Yes, the strongest: preserve the significant, replace the rest, with stated criteria. Selectivity with standards beats blanket positions.
Master every essay type in the Task 2 samples library.