Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-10

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 6.5)

High consumption of sugar has been identified as the root cause of many health concerns in contemporary world. Many people argue that it can be controlled through making sugary products very expensive and advocating a low sugary diet. I partially agree with this and this essay examines the reasons behind it.

Firstly, making sugary products expensive proved to be wrong strategy to lower the consumption of sugar in many countries. For instance, due to the high occurance of life style and metabolic diseases, the government of India increased the price of sugar by imposing high agricultural tax on sugar cane farmers. It eventually increased the prices of sugary drinks and products, however, people were ready to pay the excess to consume their favourite sweet products. The rate of life style diseases such as diabetes and obesity are still high in India and even crossed the world average.

Creating awareness about the hazards, which causes the high intake of sugar, has been identified as effective in many developing countries. In South Africa, they updated their school curriculum by adding the importance of restricting sugar in their diet in 2021. It allows the children to learn and practice a low sugar diet since their childhood, which was proved to be an effective intervention. In addition to this, the governement also allocated a considerable budget to the research and development of low sugar diet, which eventually lead to the innovation of monk fruit, a healthy substitute for sugar. The recent health statistics shows that South African population has incredibly improved their health status in a five year period.

In conclusion, educating and encourgaing people to follow a low sugar diet is the proven techique to reduce the occurance of health issues, while making sugary products expensive has turned to be an ineffective method.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 7.0

You have addressed all parts of the task and maintained a clear position throughout. Your argument is well-structured, providing a counter-argument regarding the ineffectiveness of price hikes and a supporting argument for educational interventions. The examples provided, such as the situation in India and the curriculum changes in South Africa, are relevant and help to extend your ideas. To reach a higher band, ensure that your position is even more explicitly stated in the introduction and consistently reinforced in the conclusion. Overall, the response is well-developed and directly answers the prompt.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 7.0

The essay is logically organized with a clear progression of ideas. Each paragraph has a central topic, and you use cohesive devices such as 'Firstly', 'In addition to this', and 'In conclusion' to guide the reader. However, some transitions are slightly mechanical, and there are minor issues with referencing, such as the phrase 'which causes the high intake of sugar' in the third paragraph, which is slightly ambiguous. Paragraphing is used appropriately, and the flow of information is generally smooth and easy to follow throughout the response.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, including terms like 'metabolic diseases', 'intervention', and 'innovation'. There are some spelling errors, such as 'occurance' (occurrence), 'governement' (government), 'encourgaing' (encouraging), and 'techique' (technique). While these do not impede communication, they are noticeable. To improve, try to incorporate more precise collocations and ensure accuracy in spelling. The use of 'life style' as two words should be 'lifestyle', and 'low sugary diet' would be more naturally expressed as 'a low-sugar diet'.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, which is appropriate for this level. There are several grammatical errors, such as 'making sugary products very expensive and advocating a low sugary diet' (should be 'by making... and advocating'), and 'the recent health statistics shows' (subject-verb agreement: 'statistics show'). Additionally, 'which causes the high intake of sugar' is a slightly awkward relative clause. While these errors are present, they rarely impede communication. To achieve a higher score, focus on subject-verb agreement and refining the use of complex sentence structures.

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

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