Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-17

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people think that it’s a good idea to socialise with work colleagues during evenings and weekends. Other people think it’s important to keep working life completely separate from social life.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

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

Student answer (Band 6.5)

The boundaries between social life and work life have become a topic of discussion. While, some people believe that remaining connected to work colleagues during their time-off is beneficial, others argue both lives should be kept separate. I personally believe that although having good connections with co-workers is a good idea, work-life balance is far more important.

On the one hand, socialisation with colleagues helps to strengthen relationships and improve mutual understanding. This is because, spending time apart from work enables individuals to understand other perspective and opinions more thoroughly. It eventually finishes the work-based conflicts, and imroves workplace environment. In addition to this, it might be the best idea to discuss the problems deeply, without any distraction and rush. For example, during any architechual project it is not possibles to discuss problem during construction as it is a huge projet and hard to involve every contractors.

On the other hand, the opponents argue that for better physical and mental health, work and social life should be completely different. A small break from work have a positive impact on individual's mental well-being. It offers them to relax and get refreshed. Whereas, staying involved in work for whole week can leave individuals exchausted and lessen the productivity. Moreover, it is essential to make relation stronger to spend time with friends. Otherwise, it can significantly affects the relationship with family and friends.

In conclusion, while spending time with coworker can help to improve work experience and slove problems in a better way, family and friend's importance cannot be ignored. I think for overall well-being a balanced approach to separate both relation is essential.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response7.0
Coherence and Cohesion6.5
Lexical Resource6.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy6.0
Overall6.5

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 7.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both views on socialising with colleagues and providing a clear personal opinion. The student establishes a position in the introduction and maintains it through to the conclusion. Ideas are relevant and supported with explanations, such as how socialising helps resolve conflicts and why downtime is essential for mental health. However, some supporting arguments are slightly under-developed or vague, particularly the example regarding an 'architechual project' which contains confusing phrasing like 'it is not possibles to discuss problem during construction'. Nevertheless, the main tenets of the prompt are well-covered, placing this securely in the Band 6.5 to 7.0 territory, leaning towards Band 7 due to clear task progression.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The essay is logically organised with clear staging from introduction, body paragraphs for each view, to a concise conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas. Cohesive devices such as 'On the one hand', 'On the other hand', 'In addition to this', and 'In conclusion' are utilised to guide the reader through the argument. However, referencing and cohesive links are occasionally mechanical or slightly awkward, such as starting a sentence with 'Whereas, staying involved...' where 'whereas' is misused as a conjunction at the beginning of a standalone sentence. Overall, the logical progression is clear throughout.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'mutual understanding', 'mental well-being', and 'balanced approach'. However, there are several word-choice and spelling errors throughout the text, including 'imroves' instead of 'improves', 'architechual' instead of 'architectural', 'possibles' instead of 'possible', 'projet' instead of 'project', 'contractors' instead of 'contractors' (in a context implying general colleagues), 'exchausted' instead of 'exhausted', and 'slove' instead of 'solve'. While these errors do not impede overall communication, their frequency prevents the lexical score from reaching Band 7.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The writer employs a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating attempts at subordination and relative clauses (e.g., 'While, some people believe that...'). There are frequent error-free sentences, particularly in expressing general opinions, but a number of grammatical and punctuation errors persist. These include unnecessary commas ('While, some people', 'This is because, spending'), subject-verb agreement issues ('A small break from work have'), prepositional slips, and incorrect sentence fragments or misuse of conjunctions ('Whereas, staying involved in work...'). Despite these flaws, communication is rarely impeded, allowing the response to comfortably achieve a Band 6.

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