Onterra TutorWho should pay to retrain workers replaced by automation?
TOEFL iBT writing question in the official format, with a full model answer and notes on why it scores. Write your own version below it and get an instant rater-style score.
The question
Your professor is teaching a class on labour economics. Write a post responding to the professor's question. In your response, express and support your opinion and add to the discussion in your own words. A strong response has at least 100 words.
Professor Ruiz: Automation is removing whole categories of jobs. When a company replaces workers with machines, who should pay to retrain those workers: the company, the government, or the workers themselves?
Anya: The company should pay. It captures the savings from automating, so it should carry the cost of the disruption it created rather than passing that bill to taxpayers.
Tobi: Governments have to do it. A single company cannot retrain people for jobs in other industries, and firms that are struggling will simply close instead of funding courses.
Model answer
Anya has the fairness argument and Tobi has the practical one, and the way out is to separate who pays from who organises. Tobi is right that a single firm cannot train a former warehouse worker for a job in health care, so governments should run the programmes. Anya is right that the firm captured the savings, so a levy on companies that automate can fund those programmes without the taxpayer carrying the whole bill. I would add a timing point neither made. Retraining offered after the job disappears arrives too late, because people take the first work they can find. The money has to be spent while the wage is still coming in.
Why this answer scores
- Splits the question into funding and delivery, resolving what looked like a straight disagreement.
- Proposes a concrete mechanism (a levy on firms that automate) rather than a vague compromise.
- The timing argument is the response's own idea and is placed where it lands hardest, at the end.
Do not memorise model answers; raters recognise recycled essays instantly. Study the moves, then make them with your own ideas, and check where you stand with a scored practice.
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