Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Recent IELTS Exams (Canada & India) · 2026-08-24

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In many countries not enough students are choosing to study science at university. What are the causes of this? What effects does it have on society?

Give reasons for your answer and include relevant examples from your knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 6.0)

In recent years, tertiary education has become a widely debated issue. It is often argued that the number of students who choose science subjects are very low, for their university education and it is not sufficient to the society. This essay explains the reasons behind this phenomenon and what types of effects have on the public society.

The primary factor for this is that university education costs significantly. In other words, most of the parents do not have financial ability to pay university fees, because of several factors sch as inflation. As a result, students leave the education system and try to find out jobs. Although they are willing to study science, they have no ability to continue. As a illustration, a survey conducted by university lecturers, has recently proved that the rate of the youngers who enter to tertiary education decreased by 25% and the main reason was the poverty. Therefore, harmful effects such as low number of health professionals can be implemented because of this problem. Strong remedies should be taken by the government to reduce this issue. For example, government can introduce scholarships for those who get higher results in science stream in A/L examination.

Another significant reason is that a considerable number of students addicted to drugs and alcohol, resulting them not to enroll for higher education. Additionally, parents must keep attention on their children and they should take actions to protect the younger generation from harmful habits. For instance, one of my friends who wanted to become a doctor, had to abandon his university life, since he addicted to drug called "Ice". As an effect, the future generation will be unhealthy and the future of the country will be vanished.

In conclusion, poverty and the drug addiction are the main reasons for low number of university students and small proportion of health care professions and the unhealthy future generation are the crucial effects of this problem.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses both parts of the prompt: causes (financial constraints and drug addiction) and effects (shortage of professionals and societal decline). However, the development is somewhat uneven. The link between the causes and the specific field of science is weak; the essay discusses general university education rather than focusing on why science, in particular, is being avoided. The ideas are relevant but could be more deeply explored with more specific academic or societal context. The position is clear, but the supporting examples, such as the mention of a friend, are anecdotal rather than analytical, which limits the depth of the argument.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The essay is logically organized into paragraphs, each with a clear central topic. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'In other words', 'As a result', and 'Additionally', which help guide the reader. However, some transitions feel mechanical or slightly awkward, such as 'As a illustration' (which also contains a grammatical error) and 'As an effect'. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate the two main causes. While the progression of ideas is generally clear, the connection between sentences could be smoother to improve the overall flow and coherence of the argument.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, allowing the student to communicate their ideas clearly. There are attempts to use topic-specific vocabulary like 'tertiary education', 'inflation', and 'scholarships'. However, there are instances of imprecise word choice and collocation errors, such as 'youngers' instead of 'young people', 'keep attention on' instead of 'pay attention to', and 'vanished' instead of 'compromised' or 'diminished'. These errors do not impede communication, but they do prevent the essay from reaching a higher band score, as the range is somewhat limited and lacks sophistication.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While the meaning is usually clear, there are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with subject-verb agreement ('the number of students... are very low'), article usage ('to the society'), and prepositional phrases ('enter to tertiary education'). Some sentences are slightly awkward, such as 'what types of effects have on the public society'. While the student attempts complex structures, these often contain errors. The control of punctuation is generally acceptable, but the frequency of grammatical slips suggests that the student has not yet mastered complex sentence construction.

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

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