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)

Most of the population believes that,being friends with workmates in their free time durning weekend and after work is beneficial, although other majority thinks, work like should be keep different from their personal life. I will discuss both the arguments in the upcoming paragraphs with relevant examples.

To begin with, one of the most compelling reason to support the socialzation at work is, it increase the productivity. For example, if workers are comfortable with their work surrounding, they can work without any pressure. Because of no external pressure of work, a person can work more mind-full without stress. Thus, it clearly helps in an increase in the work productivity and reduce mistake. Moreover, a friendly work environment, helps in lower the feeling of loneliness and anxiety. It is observed that the work places where the employees are more connected to each other are more tends to be in good mental health.

On the contrary, some people counter the claim. The foremost argument they do is the mixing personal and professional life its cause conflicts at work place. At every work place there is some work politics if person have friendships with their co-workers it lead to awkward dynamics between each other and this thing create grudge between them and the environment become stressful. For Instance, In cooperate workplace there are less chances that co-workers become friends the reason its the work politics, they don't know who they should trust regarding their personal details. To get early promotion people at office can leak there personal details like if they are thinking to switch job for growth.

To conclude, I believe its good if people keep their personal and professional life separate or at least set some boundaries to avoid conflicts at work.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response6.0
Coherence and Cohesion6.5
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the prompt by discussing both views on socialising with work colleagues and providing a clear personal opinion in the introduction and conclusion. However, the development of ideas is uneven. For instance, the arguments regarding productivity and work environment are introduced with some relevant points, such as workers being comfortable without pressure, but these ideas remain somewhat limited and lack fully elaborated examples. On the other hand, the counter-argument regarding workplace politics and personal details is a bit repetitive in its focus on leaking information to gain promotions. To reach a higher level, the writer needs to extend and support all main ideas with more fully developed explanations and concrete, specific examples rather than broad generalisations.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement and successfully demonstrates a clear progression of ideas from the introduction through the body paragraphs to the conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate the different viewpoints, with distinct sections for the supportive arguments and the counter-arguments. Cohesive devices such as 'To begin with', 'On the contrary', and 'To conclude' are employed to guide the reader through the text. However, referencing and cohesive links are sometimes mechanical or occasionally faulty, such as the abrupt transition in 'The foremost argument they do is the mixing personal and professional life its cause conflicts'. To bridge the gap to a higher level, referencing needs to be smoother and the connections between sentences must be managed with greater flexibility.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The writer demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'productivity', 'anxiety', 'professional life', and 'boundaries'. However, there are noticeable limitations and inaccuracies in word choice, word form, and spelling throughout the essay. Examples include 'socialzation', 'mind-full', 'work like', 'cooperate workplace', and 'leak there personal details'. These errors in spelling and word choice do not severely impede communication, but they occur frequently enough to restrict the score. To improve this area, the writer should focus on expanding their lexical control, ensuring accurate word forms and correct spellings for both common and less common vocabulary items.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting structures like conditional clauses and relative clauses. There are, however, some recurring errors in grammar and punctuation, such as missing articles, incorrect prepositions, and faulty subject-verb agreement or clause structures, as seen in 'being friends with workmates in their free time durning weekend and after work is beneficial, although other majority thinks' and 'if person have friendships with their co-workers it lead to awkward dynamics'. Despite these errors, they rarely impede communication. To achieve a higher standard, the writer needs to demonstrate better control over complex sentence patterns and improve grammatical accuracy across verb forms, articles, and punctuation.

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