Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-01

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 5.5)

Nowadays, people believe that maintaining a equilibrium between social and professional life is one of the key factor to sustain a healthy life cycle. Whereas many people argue that going out on weekends with company employees adds on to professional life likewise friendly atmosphere and relability. On the other hand it sometimes create a major drawback of trustfulness and professionalisim.

In this busy routine where people are not getting time it very important to get themselve socialize and become the part of the society an. For this reason many people believe that going out with office colleagues helps their company in numerous of ways like it helps them to develop a friendly atmosphere in the office as the individual can get to know one another out of the office walls and be friendly. Not only this ones you know the individual out of the work place it becomes easier to understand ones mindset. Sometimes the opinion we have about an individual within the office walls is completely different to what we get to know about them out of the frame.

On the other hand, keeping a thin line between the professional and personal life is of keen importance as sometimes getting along with the office colleagues can lead to a siutation where you feel like it is not good for your professional growth. maintaing the professionalism ones you are friends with your office employees is challeneging and difficult too.

In my personal opinion, it is beneifical to maintain a gap between the professional and personal life as some people can take the advantage of it and create a major drawback in your professional growth. Nevertheless going out with the office colleagues ocaasionally can be really help too in maintaining the friendly atmosphere in the office.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both views on socialising with colleagues and providing a clear personal opinion. The writer presents relevant ideas regarding the benefits of team bonding, such as developing a friendly atmosphere, alongside the potential drawbacks like blurred professional boundaries and trust issues. However, some ideas remain under-developed or repetitive. For instance, the discussion on understanding a colleague's mindset outside of work is introduced but lacks specific, well-supported elaboration. To achieve a higher level, the ideas would need to be more fully extended and supported with deeper analysis and clearer examples, moving beyond generalisations.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a recognisable introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, ensuring that the main topic is clear throughout. Paragraphing is used to separate the different viewpoints and the writer's opinion. Nevertheless, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or faulty, as seen in repetitive transitional phrasing like 'On the other hand' and awkward linking such as 'in this busy routine where people are not getting time it very important to get themselve socialize and become the part of the society an.' Referencing is occasionally unclear, which disrupts the natural flow of ideas. Improving the flexibility and accuracy of cohesive devices would elevate the organisational quality of the writing.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The writer demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common terms such as 'equilibrium', 'professionalism', and 'beneifical'. However, there are numerous noticeable errors in word choice, spelling, and word form that cause some difficulty for the reader, such as 'relability' instead of reliability, 'trustfulness' instead of trustworthiness, and 'maintaing' instead of maintaining. The repetition of basic phrases and inaccuracies in word forms prevent the vocabulary score from rising. To reach the next level, the writer needs to expand their range of less common lexical items with greater precision and minimise spelling and word-choice errors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting structures such as 'In this busy routine where people are not getting time it very important...'. There are some errors in grammar and punctuation, including missing articles, incorrect prepositions, and faulty subject-verb agreement, such as 'it sometimes create', 'ones you know', and 'can be really help too'. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they occur frequently enough to restrict the score. To achieve a higher band, the writer must demonstrate better control over complex sentence structures and produce a greater proportion of error-free sentences.

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

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