Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-09-20

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people believe that allowing children to make their own choices on everyday matters (such as food, clothes and entertainment) is likely to result in a society of individuals who only think about their own wishes. Other people believe that it is important for children to make decisions about matters that affect them.

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)

There is no doubt that this generation is absolutely differ from its ancestors. While some people believe that giving the choice to children to act freely depending on their wishes and interests will create a selfish offspring who do not care about their society, others argue that allowing them to make their decisions, is shaping self- confident and punctual members. This essay will examine both perspectives and explain my support to the former view.

On one hand, kids who are used to behave according to their benefits will grow up, thinking only about themselves and do not think about the consequence of their actions. For example, if you give the permission to them to buy fast food or chocolate presistently, this will affect their health negatively. Moreover, they prioritize their advantages over the other groups, and making any effort depending on their favouritsm. In addition, getting on well with others will be useless for them. For instance, when they are going to start their career and agreeing on something according to the goal plans of this company, they may cannot coordinate to work in effective way. In short, materialism will be theis dominent feature

On the other hand, the opponents critize preventing children from choosing anything that influenced their personalities in a negative way. They argue that making the decision instead of children all the time cam diminish their strength points. They claim that any person has the right to express their opinions freely without any restrictions. For example, learning kids from their childhood to choose the colour of their clothes or picking up their favourite food will reflect on their life in a positive way . Since they will feel more confident and be proud about themselves.

In conlclusion, although allowing the young children to draw their own environment and circle it in their favourite way, they are still without good experience to predict the results of their actions. I completely agree that ultimately freedom cannot be given to the little kids.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.5
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt by discussing both views on whether children should make everyday choices and providing a clear personal opinion in the introduction and conclusion. The writer supports the view that giving total freedom creates selfish individuals, illustrating this with examples like fast food consumption and future workplace coordination difficulties. However, some ideas feel slightly repetitive or under-developed, particularly the explanation of career impacts, and there is a contradiction in the conclusion where the writer shifts focus towards 'drawing their own environment'. Nevertheless, a clear position is maintained throughout, fitting the Band 6 descriptor well.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is divided into four paragraphs with a clear overall structure, utilizing standard signposting phrases such as 'On one hand', 'On the other hand', and 'In conclusion'. However, logical progression within paragraphs is occasionally disrupted by mechanical or faulty cohesion. For instance, transitional phrases like 'Moreover' and 'In addition' are used somewhat abruptly, and referencing is sometimes imprecise, as seen with ambiguous pronoun usage ('if you give the permission to them'). Paragraphing is present and appropriate, but the overall flow suffers from minor disjointed transitions, placing this securely at Band 6.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The writer attempts a range of vocabulary suitable for an academic discussion, including terms like 'ancestors', 'perspectives', 'materialism', and 'dominent' (dominant). There are noticeable word-choice and spelling errors that occasionally detract from the writing, such as 'differ' instead of 'different', 'selfish offspring' (awkward collocation for people), 'presistently' (persistently), 'favouritsm', and 'theis' (their). Despite these inaccuracies, the vocabulary is adequate to convey the intended meaning, and less common lexical items are attempted, corresponding to a Band 6 level.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional structures (e.g., 'if you give the permission to them to buy fast food... this will affect their health negatively'). However, grammatical errors are frequent throughout the text, including tense and verb-form mistakes such as 'may cannot coordinate' instead of 'may not be able to coordinate', 'critize' instead of 'criticize', and prepositional errors like 'influenced their personalities in a negative way'. Punctuation errors also appear, such as unnecessary commas before dependent clauses. These errors occasionally cause strain for the reader, placing the grammar at a Band 5.5, rounded to 5.0 or evaluated closely.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.