Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-21

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)

Supporters of this view argue that it is better to have socializations with your workmates during evenings and weekends. However, certain people think that it is significant to completely separate the working life from social life.

On the one hand, some people believe that it can bring many benefits to your workplace when you bond together with you coworkers during evening and weekends. This will have a positive impact to every employee and workplace because it can strengthen their relationship and allows them to know more about their workmates. As a result, employees will work better and remove any negative feelings toward their coworkers. For example, when they plan to bond together with their workmates they can share their hard feelings to certain someone and decides to resolve it to remove any negative emotions.

On the other hand, some people like to separate working life to social life because they do not want to have connections with their coworkers. This could lead to having a barrier to each worker in which it will not be beneficial to their workplace. In addition, they tend to focus on their work rather than socialize with their coworkers because it can affect their performances. For example, your employer decided to have a team building at the beach and all of you decided to have a drink and when you are drunk you accidentally told your negative thoughts to your coworker and that will have a negative impact to you and your workplace.

In my opinion, it is better to have a socialization with your workmates in order to strengthen the camaraderie and get to know more about them. Thus, it allows them to work better and improve their skills to have a higher-quality workplace environment.

In conclusion, socializing with your workmates can have a positive impact to your workplace. However, separating work place from social life could have a negative impact that would result to a toxic workplace.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You discuss both positions and state your preference clearly: you support socialising with colleagues because it can strengthen relationships and improve the workplace. The examples about resolving tensions and a team-building event are relevant to the topic. However, the discussion is uneven and some reasoning is under-developed. The case for keeping work and social life separate is presented mainly as a risk of oversharing while drinking; explain more broadly why people may value privacy, family time, or boundaries after work. Your conclusion also calls separation negative without acknowledging that it can benefit some employees. Develop each view more evenly and make the reasoning behind your opinion more precise.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a clear overall structure: an introduction, two contrasting body paragraphs, your opinion, and a conclusion. The signposts “On the one hand,” “On the other hand,” and “In my opinion” make the direction easy to follow. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes mechanical, with repeated references to positive or negative workplace impact rather than a fuller chain of explanation. Some references are unclear, such as “they can share their hard feelings to certain someone,” where the reader must infer who is involved. The conclusion also repeats the main claim without adding a balanced final synthesis. Use linking phrases more selectively and make pronouns and references explicit.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “coworkers,” “negative feelings,” “team building,” and “workplace environment.” There are also attempts at more specific expressions, such as “strengthen the camaraderie.” However, several word choices and collocations are noticeably inaccurate or repetitive: “socializations,” “bond together,” “impact to,” and “higher-quality workplace environment” sound unnatural in context. “Workmates” and “coworkers” are repeated frequently, limiting variety. Aim for more natural combinations and precise terms, such as “socialise with colleagues,” “build rapport,” and “have an impact on the workplace.” This would make the argument clearer and more fluent.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt both simple and complex sentences, including clauses beginning with “because” and “when,” and the overall meaning is generally understandable. However, control is inconsistent, particularly in longer sentences. For example, “This will have a positive impact to every employee and workplace because it can strengthen their relationship and allows them” has problems with prepositions, agreement, and parallel verb forms. In “they can share their hard feelings to certain someone and decides,” the subject and verb forms do not agree consistently. The sentence beginning “your employer decided to have a team building” also shifts awkwardly between past and present. Practise checking subject–verb agreement, articles, prepositions, and consistent tense, and divide overloaded sentences where needed.

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