Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-30

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)

Industries are manufacturing consumable products that contain high sugar levels in them, that could lead to a numerous health related diseases. Making such products costly could help motivate people, avoid the consumption of products with higher sugar levels in their diet. I totally agree that eating products with higher sugar levels could lead to numerous health diseases, but just making them expensive could not solve the problem.

In my opinion, eating products with higher sugar level could not only effect the people who are diabetic, but could lead to diabetes. For intance: If a person consumes such kind of products a lot with a family background dealing with diabetes could also suffer with the diabetes as the higher sugar level can trigger the problem. Another example would be a person already suffering from daibetes, consuming such products could be life threatening for him/her as the high sugar levels in the cosumed products could raise the sugar level in his/her body that would consequently result in organ failure.

Making such product expensive would solve the problems as the individuals who can afford expensive product would probably continue to consume those products. The problem could be solve in such a way if strict limits are developed. For example: Sof drinks could not contain a sugar can higher than 2% of its total and if manufacturers follow the regulations strictly then

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.0
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource6.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.5
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response addresses the prompt by discussing whether sugary products should be made more expensive, but the length requirement of 250 words is not met, as the essay contains only 228 words and trails off abruptly in the final sentence. The position is partially presented, but the arguments lack full extension and logical conclusion due to the under-length nature of the response. For instance, the counterargument regarding affordability is introduced but not fully developed, and the concluding thoughts remain unfinished. To improve, the student must ensure all parts of the task are fully supported with extended ideas and meet the minimum word count.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay displays some organization with paragraph breaks separating the introduction, body paragraph, and conclusion, but the overall progression is disrupted by the abrupt ending of the text. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'In my opinion' and 'Another example would be', though referencing is sometimes unclear, as seen in 'consumes such kind of products a lot with a family background'. Paragraphing is attempted, but the final paragraph is incomplete, which impacts the structural coherence of the piece. To enhance cohesion, the student should ensure every paragraph has a complete thought and that transitional markers link ideas smoothly.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'consequently result in organ failure' and 'regulations strictly'. However, there are noticeable word-choice errors and spelling mistakes that detract from the writing, including 'effect' instead of 'affect', 'For intance' instead of 'For instance', 'daibetes' instead of 'diabetes', and 'Sof drinks' instead of 'Soft drinks'. These errors occasionally cause slight strain for the reader, placing the lexical score solidly in the band 6 range.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as conditional structures ('If a person consumes... could also suffer'). However, there are frequent grammatical errors in tense consistency, preposition use, and sentence structure, such as 'could lead to a numerous health related diseases' (uncountable/article error), 'suffer with the diabetes' (wrong preposition), and the dangling, incomplete sentence at the very end. While communication is generally maintained, these persistent inaccuracies prevent the score from reaching a higher band.

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

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