Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-04

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 6.0)

Sugar in excess is a hazard to human health. Many industrial foods and drinks contain high amounts of sugar, which results in serious health complications. Some people argue that products containing high levels of sugar should be made more expensive, to discourage people from overspending on them and consuming too much sugar. This essay agrees with this arguement as health should be prioritized over everything.

Sugar is essential for human health, but when consumed in excess it becomes a poison. Thus, it becomes necessary to impose a sugar tax on manufactured food and drink products. Excessive sugar intake can lead to complicated health concerns such as diabetes, chronic diseases, and heart attacks. Sugar is one of the main causes for severe diabetes across the world. Diabetic patients have to perform regular health checks, and track their diet all the time, which can become a queit a burden. Similarly, High sugar intake also raises blood cholesterol, which in turn causes chronic diseases along with an increased risk of heart attack.

Additionally, sugar has the ability to control our mood. Consuming sugar may help to improve our mood, but consuming it in excess will only worsen it. Though sugar by itself is not a major contributor for worsening our mood, industrial sugar is linked with traces of various harmful chemicals. These chemicals enter our blood stream and promote the secretion of certain hormones that effect our mood. Studies indicate that sugar consumption is directly linked with emotional overrides such as anger issues, depression, social anxiety and so on.

To conclude this essay, excessive sugar intake can have catastrophic outcomes including diseases like diabetes and emotional fluctuations like anger issues. Though sugar is an essential component for human health, this essay argues that a sugar tax must be imposed on manufactured food products, as to discourage people from it's overconsumption.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the prompt, clearly stating a position in the introduction and maintaining it throughout. The ideas are relevant, focusing on health consequences and the psychological impact of sugar. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited. For instance, the argument regarding 'emotional overrides' is a bit speculative and lacks a clear link to how a price increase would specifically solve this. While the position is clear, the supporting arguments could be more thoroughly extended with more concrete examples or logical depth to reach a higher band.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The essay is logically organized with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas. Cohesive devices such as 'Thus', 'Similarly', and 'Additionally' are used to link sentences and paragraphs. However, some transitions feel slightly mechanical, and the flow between the health-related arguments and the mood-related arguments could be smoother. Overall, the progression of ideas is easy to follow, and the referencing is generally clear throughout the text.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, with some attempts at more sophisticated terminology like 'catastrophic outcomes' and 'emotional fluctuations'. However, there are some inaccuracies in word choice and collocation, such as 'queit a burden' (spelling error) and 'emotional overrides' (unnatural collocation). The range is sufficient to convey the intended meaning, but it lacks the precision and flexibility required for a higher band. The repetition of 'sugar' and 'mood' also limits the lexical variety.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are several grammatical errors, such as 'effect our mood' (should be 'affect') and 'it's overconsumption' (incorrect use of apostrophe). While these errors do not impede communication, they are frequent enough to prevent a higher score. The control of punctuation is generally good, but the misuse of 'it's' versus 'its' is a recurring issue. A wider variety of error-free complex structures would be needed to move into the 7.0+ range.

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