IELTS Writing Exercise
"One of the consequences of improved medical care is that people are living longer and life expectancy is increasing. Do you think the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages?"
Medical progress and universal access to medical care have sharply increased the average life expectancy to levels previously unknown. We have become accustomed to expecting that we will live far longer than our grandparents did. We rejoy the idea, as we think this will give us time to experience for a longer time the pleasures that life can offer. Moreover, one must not forget that we are usually very scared of death, and we would always postpone it should we have the chance.
Nevertheless, greater life expectancy might have a dark side of the coin. First of all, a longer life does not necessarily imply a happier or better life. In fact, as we grow older we become less independent and may even pick up a very bad disease. This loads a very heavy burden on the shoulders of hospitals and the overall public health system, not to mention on the families and the youngest generations, which might feel obliged to take care of the elderly. The experience of a longer life may even turn into an experience of never-ending suffering. One just needs to give a quick look at our hospitals to see how many elderly people with chronic diseases are simply laying on beds waiting for their time to end.
My personal belief is that we should not aim to make our lives longer, but to make them better and more enjoyable. This can be done by promoting a healthy lifestyle to both the youngest and the oldest generations. This would not only benefit the medical system, which is currently collapsing under the weight of its own success in increasing one’s life expectancy, but also our very lives and, therefore, ourselves.
