Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-02

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 5.0)

The topic describe that many manufactured products contains high sugar and this cause health problems. Then the products prices should become high so many people should take less sugar. The main thing is not price , it is that the people should must know how sugar harms them. This encourage people to take low sugary foods. People have problem that they should not understand how it harms us. We should observe the problem before doing any thing. If we made product more expensive , many rich people should buy it . Almost everyone loves sugary deserts .Increasing the price is not the right solution. We should take less sugar . Too much always affects us . Companies should must label the percentage of sugar in their product. I should not ask that companies increase the price of any food or drink. I also experience that poor and rich people must buy products that have high sugar . They do not look at the prices ,they pay any a

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The response fails to meet the minimum word count requirement of 250 words, reaching only 168 words. This significantly limits the development of ideas. While the student addresses the prompt by expressing a clear disagreement with the proposed price increase, the arguments are underdeveloped and repetitive. The suggestion to use labels is relevant, but it lacks the necessary elaboration and supporting examples required for a higher band. Because the response is substantially under-length and lacks depth in its reasoning, it does not fully address the requirements of the task.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay lacks a clear paragraph structure, which makes the progression of ideas difficult to follow. There is a lack of cohesive devices to link sentences and ideas together; for example, the transition between the price argument and the labeling suggestion is abrupt. The use of referencing is also weak, with pronouns often lacking clear antecedents. While the overall message is understandable, the lack of logical organization and the absence of effective linking words prevent the essay from achieving a higher score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary is basic and repetitive, relying on simple terms like 'good', 'bad', 'price', and 'sugar'. There is little attempt to use more sophisticated or academic vocabulary appropriate for an IELTS Task 2 essay. Phrases such as 'The main thing is not price' and 'I should not ask that' are informal and lack the precision expected at higher levels. To improve, the student needs to incorporate a wider range of topic-specific vocabulary related to health, economics, and public policy.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response contains frequent grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement issues ('products contains', 'this cause'), incorrect modal usage ('should must'), and awkward phrasing ('I should not ask that'). The sentence structures are predominantly simple, with very few attempts at complex sentences. Punctuation is also inconsistent, with spaces missing before commas and an incomplete final sentence. These errors occur throughout the text and occasionally impede the reader's understanding of the intended meaning.

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

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