Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-11-12

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Many manufactured food and drink products contain high levels of sugar, which causes many health problems. Sugary products should be made more expensive to encourage people to consume less sugar.

Do you agree or disagree?

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

It is widely argued that a lot of manufactured food and drink products contain high levels of sugar, which is unhealthy for the health. Such products should be made expensive to discourage people to consume less. I largely disagree with this statement as sugar is essential for someone with medical problems. However, healthy and affordable alternative products should be encouraged to counter the problem of unhealthy sugar intake.

To begin with, raising the prices of manufactured food can affect people with medical conditions such as diabetes.

Those people often relies on packaged food when their blood sugar drops. Increasing price can affect them financially. Moreover, price hikes do not address the root cause of poor eating habits. Whereas nutritional education, cleared food labeling and makeing healthy foods cheaper would create lating lifestyle changes. Thus, introducing healthy lifestyle with affordable food products can encourage people to consume less high sugar products.

Another point to add, increasing prices acts as a regressive tax that hurts low-income families the most, as such families often relies on fast food because they are cheaper than vegetables and fruits. Therefore, food stamps and discount coupon should be given to underprivileged families to purchase healthy foods.

In conclusion, introducing healthy and affordable lifestyle to individuals and financially help low-income families should be encouraged instead of making sugary products more expensive.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

Your position is clear: you largely disagree with making sugary products more expensive, and you offer alternatives such as nutrition education, clearer labelling and affordable healthy food. The points about people with medical conditions and low-income families are relevant, but the first is not fully explained: the claim that people with diabetes rely on packaged food when their blood sugar drops needs clarification and support. The response also does not fully explore how your proposed measures would reduce sugar consumption. The required minimum was not met: the response contains 212 words, 38 short, and 11 words copied from the prompt were not counted. Develop each main reason with a specific example and explanation, and add enough relevant detail to meet the task requirement.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a recognisable structure, with an introduction, two body paragraphs and a conclusion, and the main ideas generally follow a sensible order. Linking phrases such as “To begin with,” “Moreover” and “In conclusion” help signal the stages of the argument. However, progression within the body paragraphs is sometimes abrupt: the discussion moves from diabetes to education and then to low-income families without clearly showing how each point supports the central position. The phrase “Another point to add” is also less natural as a transition, and “Thus” introduces a conclusion before the paragraph’s reasoning is fully developed. Use clearer links between claims and explanations, and make each paragraph focus on one main reason.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant topic vocabulary, including “medical conditions,” “nutritional education,” “price hikes,” “regressive tax” and “low-income families.” These choices show an adequate range for discussing the issue, but several expressions are imprecise or awkward, which limits clarity and naturalness. For example, “unhealthy for the health” is repetitive, “introducing healthy lifestyle” does not express your intended idea clearly, and “consume less high sugar products” is an unnatural phrase. There are also spelling errors in “makeing” and “lating.” Aim for more accurate collocations and check spelling carefully; precise wording will make your argument sound more fluent and convincing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt both simple and complex sentence forms, including a relative clause in the opening sentence and a conditional-style explanation of the effects of price increases. Meaning is generally understandable, but some errors in agreement, articles and sentence construction remain. For example, “Those people often relies” should use a plural verb, and “Increasing price” needs an appropriate article or plural form. The sentence beginning “Whereas nutritional education” is a fragment rather than a complete sentence, while “healthy lifestyle with affordable food products can encourage” has a mismatch between the intended plural idea and its verb. Practise checking that every sentence has a complete main clause and that subjects and verbs agree.

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