Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-10-03

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)

While one school of thought believes that children should not be given the permission to make their own choices of daily matter like food, clothes and entertainment because it might result in a society that is selfish, the other school of thought believes that it is essential for children to make decisions that may affect them. I personally agree with the latter.

Children are the future of a society. Taking decisions on behalf of them results in a society raising kids that consult everyone before making choices because they dont believe in themselves.

This results in a problem of people pleasing wherein these children when become adults are unable to do what they want to and end up doing things because they want to adhere to the societal expectations. For example, A kid that has always been instructed to wear a certain kind of clothes would never be able to experiment or use his brain and develope a taste for clothes that represents his individuality.

However, I think it is important for a guardian to make choices for the children when it comes to their safety. Kids are innocent and it is important to put a curb on what they consume eating or online as a mode of entertainment. For example, a kid must be restricted from watching movies that involve violence or showcase a disturbing incident. This is crucial because it could have a significant impact on a child which he or she may not be able to understand or make a choice about.

To recapitulate, i believe that while children should be allowed to make most of their decisions it is important for a guardian to help them become disciplined by keeping an eye.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both views on children making everyday choices and presenting a clear personal position. However, some ideas are under-developed or lack full extension. For instance, the discussion on the societal consequences of people-pleasing and the need for parental intervention regarding safety are introduced but not fully explored with deeper analysis. To reach the next level, the ideas would need to be more fully elaborated with richer explanations and more robust supporting arguments throughout the body paragraphs.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a concluding summary. Paragraphing is used sufficiently to separate different arguments, such as the danger of over-control versus the necessity of safety interventions. However, cohesion at times feels a bit mechanical, and referencing can occasionally lack clarity, such as the pronoun use when shifting between children and adults. To achieve higher bands, the logical progression between sentences could be smoothed out by employing a wider variety of sophisticated cohesive devices naturally rather than relying on basic transitions.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as "people-pleasing", "societal expectations", and "individuality". However, there are noticeable limitations and inaccuracies in word choice and collocation, such as "give the permission to make" instead of "permission to make" or "consumption eating" instead of "dietary habits", alongside some minor spelling issues like "develope". These lexical inaccuracies restrict the precision of the argument, though they do not seriously impede overall communication.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The essay displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting complex structures to explain cause and effect. However, frequent errors in grammar and punctuation persist, such as missing articles ("a kid that has always been instructed", "when become adults"), punctuation errors (unnecessary capitalisation in the middle of sentences), and occasional prepositional or agreement mistakes. While these errors do not completely obscure the meaning, they occur frequently enough to cause some difficulty for the reader and prevent the grammar score from advancing.

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