Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-09-24

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Many people work long hours, leaving very little time for leisure activities.

Does this situation have more advantages or more disadvantages?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

It has been observed that many people work longer hours, and consequently, barely get some time for leisure activities. This essay will examine how this trend is impacting negatively on the people's health, work performance and social life.

Although many people work long hours as it provide a self acknowledgment of commitment and hard work towards a job, it has recently been studied that actually it lowers the effectiveness at the job. There have been many studies recently which shows that consistent cognitive capacity of a human brain is lowest at the end of the day, therefore, stretching this further after normal working hours reduces the work efficiency and effectiveness. Many governments, for example, are running pilot programs to test four days of working week instead of five to check employees productivity and efficiency.

Another important impact of long working hours is on mental well-being of people. Human body and brain requires time to relax; working late hours burnout people as they keep trying to catchup expectations. In addition, It also create a sense of unspoken competition, for instance, if one employee is working late hours and others have just left on time, the employees leaving on time would be considered less committed and motivated. Furthermore, social life of individuals get affected by prolonged workings hours as people cannot spend much needed time for their families and children. A basic phenomenon behind dysfunctional family is considered the lack of time provided by parents to their children.

In conclusion, although in some cases working late hours might be required, such as a student preparing for an exam tomorrow, or a player getting ready for a tournament next week; nevertheless, consistent long workings impact human health, mental well-being, social life and work performance.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by considering both potential sides—briefly acknowledging a perceived reason for long hours before decisively arguing that the disadvantages far outweigh any benefits, focusing on health, work performance, and social life. The position is clear throughout the essay. The ideas are generally well extended and supported, such as mentioning government trials of a four-day work week and the psychological impact of unspoken workplace competition. Although the conclusion introduces minor new examples (like a student preparing for an exam or a player getting ready for a tournament), these do not detract significantly from the overall development. The student meets the band 6 to 7 criteria well by addressing all parts of the prompt with relevant, supported ideas.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay demonstrates a clear overall progression. Ideas are logically sequenced across paragraphs, starting with an introduction that outlines the essay's scope, followed by body paragraphs addressing work performance, mental well-being, and social life, and concluding with a summary. Cohesive devices are used reasonably well, such as 'Although', 'In addition', 'Furthermore', and 'In conclusion'. However, there are some instances where referencing is slightly imprecise or cohesive devices are a bit mechanical, such as 'working late hours burnout people as they keep trying to catchup expectations.' Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct themes, aligning comfortably with the requirements of band 6.5 or a solid band 6.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common lexical items such as 'cognitive capacity', 'productivity', 'mental well-being', and 'dysfunctional family'. However, there are some word choice and collocation inaccuracies throughout the text, such as 'people's health' (instead of just 'people's health'), 'it provide a self acknowledgment' (grammatical and lexical mismatch), 'catchup' (should be two words or 'catch up'), and 'prolonged workings hours'. Despite these errors, the vocabulary is sufficient to convey the intended meaning without causing major difficulty for the reader, fitting the descriptors for band 6.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including conditional or concessive clauses ('Although many people work long hours as it provide...'). There are, however, noticeable grammatical and punctuation errors that recur, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('it provide', 'studies... shows', 'social life... get', 'workings impact'), missing articles ('working late hours burnout people'), and incorrect capitalization or spelling ('catchup'). While these errors do not severely impede communication, they occur frequently enough to prevent the essay from reaching a higher band, placing it firmly at band 6.

See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.

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