Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · 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 6.5)

It is an undeniable fact that people spend almost half of their day with their colleagues while being at work with them. There has been a constant debate where some people support the ideology of spending their weekends and evenings with their colleagues. On the contary side, other people believe that professional life should be separate from social life. From my perspective, although colleages are an important part of professional life, there should be a fine line between working life and social life. In the paragraphs below, I would like to put forth my views with a valid opinion in the conclusion.

To begin with, because people share the work table with the same person everyday, it is very obvious to have a sense of sympathy towards them. Afterall, man is a social animal, so he need to make connections with people. Socialising with colleagues can help to know them on a personal level. For example, while working, one only talks related to the work; but, people can talk a bit openly on several topics at the dinner table. Furthermore, having good relations with colleagues can make working environment comfortable and stressfree. Moreover, many research has proven that good relations with colleagues can lower the stress and anxiety rates by 70% among working people.

However, we seldom give a thought to ponder over the other side of the story. Most importantly, there is a sort of jelousy seen within colleagues when one of the team member is promoted to a higher position than the other one. Apparantly, colleagues are sometimes competing with eachother in the company to secure the best position. It is mostly seen that while socialising, people share a lot of their personal things with others. Giving access of personal information to colleagues might result negatively to the work life. For instance, if a person is suffering from a big problem in his personal life and his colleague knows about it, he might challenge him with the toughest task knowing the fact that he would be unable to perform well on it. Other illustration is, if one shares his negative thoughts to his colleague about the manager or supervisor, there are high chances that he can tell them to whitewash his image in front of them.

The seemingly inexorable debate about socialising with colleagues can keep on going. Nevertheless, observing a finer nuance of the matter mentioned above, I espouse the notion of supporting the fact that people should make boundries between work life and social life. Although every colleague might not have a bad intention for one, but office politics can sometimes destroy one's career.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both views on socialising with colleagues and providing a clear personal opinion in the introduction and conclusion. The ideas presented are generally relevant, fulfilling the requirements for the task. However, some parts are developed more fully than others, pointing towards a balanced evaluation that bridges the gap to higher bands. For instance, the arguments surrounding the benefits of socialising are supported with ideas about reducing stress and building connections, while the counter-arguments touch upon office politics and competitiveness. To reach the next level, these ideas could be extended with more specific examples rather than generalised statements, ensuring that every point is explored with equal depth and clarity throughout the essay.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, demonstrating a logical progression of ideas. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct arguments, such as the benefits of socialising versus the potential pitfalls of mixing work and personal life. Cohesive devices are employed to guide the reader, featuring markers like 'To begin with', 'However', and 'Furthermore'. Nevertheless, cohesion can sometimes feel slightly mechanical or repetitive in referencing. To achieve a higher band, the transitions between paragraphs and sentences could be made more flexible and subtle, ensuring that referencing words connect ideas seamlessly without drawing overt attention to themselves.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

The writer demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common items such as 'inexorable', 'nuance', and 'ideology'. However, there are some inaccuracies in word choice, spelling, and collocation that prevent the writing from reaching a higher band. For example, terms like 'contary' (contrary), 'jelousy' (jealousy), 'Apparantly' (Apparently), and 'boundries' (boundaries) contain spelling errors. Additionally, phrasing such as 'challenge him with the toughest task' or 'whitewash his image' shows minor collocation slips or awkward lexical choices. Despite these flaws, the vocabulary remains sufficient to communicate the main ideas clearly, and the occasional errors do not impede overall understanding.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The response exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating an ability to construct varied sentence structures such as conditional and concessive clauses (e.g., 'although colleagues are an important part...'). There are some errors in grammar and punctuation, including subject-verb agreement issues like 'man is a social animal, so he need to make connections' and pluralisation oversights such as 'many research has proven' instead of 'much research'. Punctuation and articles also show occasional lapses. Crucially, these errors are relatively infrequent and rarely impede communication, allowing the reader to follow the argument without difficulty. To progress further, the writer needs to increase the proportion of error-free complex sentences and exercise greater control over grammatical agreements.

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