Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-08-17

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 a controversial issue nowadays that produced foods and drinks contains high level of sugar content which becomes the reason of many health issues. It is recommended that these kinds of sugary products should be made more costly so that people take reduce their sugar intake. I am agree to this notion, and this essay will looks at the problems caused by these sugar foods in the form of serious health issues like obesity and business of people who only depend on a sale of healthy foods.

The main reason behind why I believe manufactured foods should be made more expensive is that it will become the reason for various health issues. To elaborate it, nowadays children, teenagers mostly prefer to eat processed foods because of its taste instead of eating home-made foods. They don't know that these foods are the only reason for there obesity, heart attacks, liver problems. Their parents spend more money in hospitals so that they children can get rid of these problems. There are poor children too who also started following the rich ones and indulge themselves in these kinds of problems. It put a financial burden on their parents because they cannot afford the huge expenses of hospitals.

For instance, 70% of children prefer to eat junk foods and only 30% go for healthy foods. As a result, manufactured foods are becoming the reason of financial stress for most of the people.

Further strengthening my views, it put a devastating effect on the business of fruit vendors, wheat solers and many more. In other words, due to the increase in the business of processed foods, people do not buy healthy and fresh foods that are grown by such costly procedures and they face huge failures. It's the reason of certain problems to them like anxiety, stress levels. For example, the sales of wheat now decreased by vast amounts and it is getting waste in large numbers.

In conclusion, there are certain drawbacks of these processed foods and drinks in terms of financial burden for parents business class and huge loss in business for street vendors. So, it is the best way that these products should be made more expensive to encourage people for the difficulties they faced nowadays.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The essay addresses the prompt and maintains a clear position throughout. However, the development of ideas is somewhat inconsistent. While the health impacts are discussed, the argument regarding the economic impact on fruit vendors and wheat sellers is less convincing and lacks logical depth. The connection between taxing sugary products and the specific business failures mentioned is not fully explored or supported with strong evidence. The essay would benefit from more focused arguments that directly relate to the prompt's core premise of health-based taxation. The conclusion is a bit repetitive and does not fully synthesize the points made in the body paragraphs.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into paragraphs, and there is a general progression of ideas. However, the use of cohesive devices is often mechanical or slightly awkward, such as 'Further strengthening my views' or 'To elaborate it'. Some transitions between sentences feel forced, and the logical flow within paragraphs is occasionally disrupted by unclear phrasing. For example, the transition from discussing health issues to the economic impact on vendors is abrupt. While the paragraphing is functional, the internal cohesion needs more variety and natural linking to move beyond a basic level of organization.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task but lacks precision and sophistication. There are several instances of awkward word choices, such as 'wheat solers' (likely meaning sellers) and 'business of people who only depend on a sale of healthy foods'. The range of vocabulary is somewhat limited, relying on repetitive phrasing like 'reason for' and 'made more expensive'. To reach a higher band, you should aim to use more precise collocations and a wider range of topic-specific vocabulary related to public health policy and economic impacts.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

There are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text that occasionally impede readability. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues ('foods and drinks contains', 'this essay will looks'), article misuse, and incorrect pronoun usage ('there obesity' instead of 'their obesity'). While there is an attempt to use complex sentence structures, these are often marred by errors. The control of basic grammar is inconsistent, and punctuation is sometimes used incorrectly. Improving accuracy in basic sentence construction and subject-verb agreement is essential before focusing on more complex structures.

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