Task prompt
Read the two texts below. Write an essay that summarises and evaluates their key points. Express the ideas in your own words as far as possible and include your own views on the issue. Write 240–280 words.
Word limit: 280 words
"Privacy, Security and Democratic Trust" is a C2 Proficiency Writing practice task (essay). Cambridge assesses content, communicative achievement, organisation and language on a scale from 0 to 5 per criterion. Plan before you write: identify the target reader, the required register and the number of points you must address. At C2, examiners expect sophisticated vocabulary used accurately, varied sentence structures and clear paragraphing.
Plan the essay before writing, address every prompt point, keep the expected register, respect the word limit, and use feedback to improve content, organisation, grammar range, and vocabulary precision.
Read the two texts below. Write an essay that summarises and evaluates their key points. Express the ideas in your own words as far as possible and include your own views on the issue. Write 240–280 words.
Word limit: 280 words
Governments have a responsibility to prevent serious harm, and modern threats often cross borders faster than traditional policing can respond. Carefully targeted access to communications or financial data may help investigators identify networks that would otherwise remain hidden. Citizens may accept limited intrusion when it is authorised by law, independently supervised and demonstrably connected to a specific risk. The question is not whether security services should ever collect information, but how far their powers can extend without becoming ineffective or unaccountable. Public confidence depends on knowing that exceptional measures will be reviewed, limited and open to challenge.
Surveillance powers tend to outlast the emergencies that first justify them. Once large quantities of personal data are collected, they may be misused, shared beyond their original purpose or exposed through error. Even people who have done nothing wrong may alter what they read, say or support when they feel permanently observable. Security is important, but a democracy that normalises broad monitoring can undermine the trust and freedom it claims to defend. Safeguards must therefore be meaningful rather than symbolic. Independent courts and clear limits on retention are essential if security policy is not to become a permanent system of suspicion.