Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-31

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)

Nowadays. a vast population of working class, soend more hours on their work, while they only use their spare time on relaxations. In this essay, I will concentrate on the disadvantages leaving spare time for relaxations. Which includes poor physical health and weak social relationships.

Firstly, people concentate on making money, but gibe less attention to their mental health and physical fittness. After many years of working and accumulating wealth, they realise they dont have the health to enjoy their wealth. My aunt was a successful business woman with just a child, she barely had time for herself and her son. surprisingly, she developed health issues and died, her son could not keep to her numerous wealth, he bagan to waste all she had acquired with hard work.

Secondly, Socialising with friends and meeting new friends is also a key part of human existence. When we dont create the room to meet people and make new friends, we become isolated in life. My neighbour does not like crowded activities around him, I've obseved that during his child birth, his visitirs were minimal, only extended family members attended his event, because he does not honour other people event. Furthermore, I will stongly argue that people working long hours develop poor health concerns, and experience weak relationships, which in turn affect their mindset, compared to few that understand work and personal life balance.

Conclusively, In this essay I will agree that, the benefits of balancing your leisure time with working hours outweighs the aforementioned.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You take a position against long working hours and identify two relevant disadvantages: harm to health and weaker social relationships. The examples about your aunt and neighbour help make these points concrete. However, the response does not consistently answer the comparison in the question: it needs to decide clearly whether the overall disadvantages outweigh the advantages, rather than mainly listing disadvantages and then concluding that balancing leisure and work is beneficial. The aunt’s story is also difficult to follow, and the neighbour example does not clearly show how long working hours caused limited social contact. Develop each point with a clearer explanation of the link to the question and state your overall judgement consistently from the introduction to the conclusion.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has an introduction, two body paragraphs and a conclusion, and signposts such as “Firstly” and “Secondly” make the main points easy to identify. However, progression is uneven: the introduction promises disadvantages, while the conclusion shifts to the benefits of balancing leisure and work, leaving your final position unclear. Some links between examples and claims are also weak; for instance, the neighbour’s visitors at a child’s birth are not clearly connected to working long hours. The phrase “Furthermore” introduces a point that largely repeats the earlier health and relationship claims. Use each paragraph to develop one central idea, explain how its example supports it, and make the conclusion directly answer the advantages-versus-disadvantages question.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use vocabulary relevant to the topic, including “mental health,” “accumulating wealth,” “isolated,” and “work and personal life balance.” These choices show an attempt to express more than basic ideas. However, noticeable spelling errors and inaccurate or unnatural word combinations sometimes make the meaning harder to follow, as in “soend,” “concentate,” “gibe,” “physical fittness,” and “weak relationships.” Phrases such as “spare time on relaxations” and “poor health concerns” are also not natural in this context. Aim for accurate, conventional collocations and check spelling carefully. For example, use “spend time relaxing,” “physical fitness,” and “health problems” to express your ideas more clearly.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt a mixture of simple and more complex sentences, including clauses beginning with “while,” “because,” and “when.” However, control is inconsistent, and several sentence-boundary and clause-structure problems make parts difficult to read. “Nowadays. a vast population of working class, soend more hours…” is not a complete, correctly punctuated sentence, while “Which includes poor physical health…” is a fragment. The sentence about your aunt joins several independent ideas with commas, and “the benefits … outweighs” has a subject–verb agreement error. Practise building complete sentences, separating independent clauses with full stops or suitable conjunctions, and checking agreement and articles. More accurate control of these patterns would make your argument easier to understand.

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