Sample IELTS Agree/Disagree Essay – Friends and Teachers

The Question

Friends have more impact on the academic performance of students than their teachers do.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

The Sample IELTS Essay

Nowadays, most people recognize the value of getting a good education.  Moreover, we often think about all of the factors that influence students.  Personally, I believe that friends have a greater impact on young students than their teachers.

First, students spend more time with their friends than they do with their teachers.  While they meet them at school, they also spend time with them in the evening and on the weekend. Inevitably, they start to resemble their friends and share their academic values and priorities.  For instance, if we become close to someone who is very studious we might also start to prioritize things like getting our homework done on time and achieving high scores on tests.  A skilled teacher can tell us that we ought to achieve academic success, but it is hard for them to influence our core values because we only spend a few hours with them each week.

Secondly, students love to compete with their friends, and this can change the course of their academic lives. When we see that our friends are admired for their high scores, we often decide that we also want to get high scores.  Indeed, we might want to surpass their results so that people will praise us even more. Teachers serve as academic advisors and sources of information, but they usually don’t encourage competitiveness amongst their students. In my experience, students who are home-schooled sometimes lack this competitive spirit because they are not influenced by classmates.

In conclusion, I feel that students are influenced by their classmates and friends much more than their teachers.  This is because they spend time with their friends outside of class, and they often compete with them.