O-Level Model Essay: Social Media (Expository)
This page shows you one full model answer. Plan and write your own attempt first, then compare it with this essay and read the notes on where it earns its marks.
What you have to do
| Part | Detail |
|---|---|
| Length | 350 to 500 words |
| Marked on | Content and Organisation, and Language |
| This essay type | Expository or argumentative |
Sample question: "Social media does more harm than good." How far do you agree?
"How far" means the marker wants a position with limits, not a flat yes or no. You still have to pick a side and argue it.
The model essay
I agree that social media does more harm than good, though not for the usual reasons. Most of the harm is not an accident. A platform earns money when I stay on it, so everything about it is tuned to keep me scrolling. The good things social media can do are real, but they usually happen when someone uses it on purpose. The harm happens when you stop thinking. That uneven contest decides the question for me.
The first reason is what the feed does to how I see myself. Nobody posts an ordinary Tuesday. What reaches me is a friend's exam results and not her panic the night before, a classmate's holiday and not the argument in the car. I know how the trick works, and I still feel worse after half an hour of scrolling. Knowing about a trick is not the same as being safe from it. I have watched classmates delete posts that nobody liked quickly enough. Friendship quietly turns into performance, and the audience never goes home.
The second reason is what it does to how we disagree. A feed rarely shows my opponent at their most careful. It shows the angriest person arguing for their side, because anger keeps me reading. So each side meets the stupidest version of the other and comes away more certain. When our school changed the reporting time last term, the two camps in the class poll never really argued with each other. They answered screenshots of each other's worst comments, and by Friday nobody remembered what anyone had first said.
There is one honest exception, and it deserves more than a sentence. For a teenager with an illness nobody in her school has heard of, social media is how she finds people like her. For a migrant worker calling home, or a small bakery taking orders through Instagram, it is a genuine lifeline. During the long school closures it was, for some people, the only classroom and the only friend group they had. I will not pretend that this good is small.
But look at what each side of the argument needs. The good needs effort and some luck, the right community and someone to teach you how to use it well. The harm needs a phone and a bored evening. Since the companies make money from my boredom and not from my growth, they will always design for the bored version of me. The good is possible. The harm is the default. That is why, on balance, I agree.
Why this works
- The question asks "how far do you agree". Your opening gives a position, not a shrug.
- One argument runs the whole length of the essay. Harm is the default, and good takes effort.
- Each reason gets a full paragraph with a scene, not just a label.
- You state the other side's best case, connection, in its strongest form. Then you explain why it does not overturn your position.
- You argue from school scenes instead of invented studies. Examiners can spot a made-up statistic, and you never offer one.
- Long sentences build the case, and short ones deliver the verdict. That contrast keeps the essay moving to its final judgement.
Deal with the strongest version of the counter-argument, not the weakest. A marker gives more credit for an honest concession than for an easy win.
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