Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-10-03

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)

Numerous edible items and beverages contain very high amount of sugar in them, causing numerous serious health issues. The products with high sugar levels should be made more costly to motivate people to intake less sugar .I agreed to the fact of hiking the price of these items but doing this alone would not work education on proper and balanced diet is as important as price to reduce the health issues.

The rate of products with high sugar levels must be increased in order to reduce the issue of increasing health problems. For instance, excessive consumption of high amount of sugar causes number of problems like obesity, cardiac problems and these problems are experiencing a hike in them which needs to be stopped, which can be done by increasing the price of products with high level of sugar in it, which would motivates people to consume less sweet and will help in reducing health problems.

Another important fact is that

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response4.5
Coherence and Cohesion4.5
Lexical Resource5.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.0

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.5

Your response addresses the task minimally because it is incomplete and cuts off mid-sentence after only 160 words, falling well short of the 250-word minimum requirement. While you present a partial position that agrees with increasing prices while also emphasizing education, your ideas are severely limited and under-developed due to the premature ending. For instance, you mention that excessive sugar causes obesity and cardiac problems, but you do not fully explore how higher prices would directly influence consumer habits or adequately develop your counter-argument regarding dietary education. To improve your task response, you must write a fully developed essay meeting the length requirement, ensuring all parts of the prompt are thoroughly supported with relevant explanations and examples.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.5

Your response shows some basic organisation and attempts to structure your thoughts into paragraphs, but there is no clear overall progression because the essay stops abruptly. You use some basic cohesive devices such as 'For instance' to introduce an example, but referencing and logical flow are undermined by repetitive phrasing like 'numerous' and 'products with high sugar levels'. Paragraphing is also disrupted by the incomplete structure, as your second body paragraph trails off after a single sentence starter ('Another important fact is that'). To achieve a higher band, you need to structure your writing into a clear introduction, well-developed body paragraphs with logical progression, and a concluding summary, using a wider range of cohesive devices accurately without excessive repetition.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

Your vocabulary choice is limited but minimally adequate to convey your basic point of view. You demonstrate some attempts at less common phrasing, such as 'excessive consumption', 'cardiac problems', and 'balanced diet', but there are noticeable errors in word choice, word form, and collocation. For example, writing 'intake less sugar' instead of 'consume less sugar', and using 'experiencing a hike in them' rather than 'increasing in frequency' or 'becoming more prevalent'. There are also awkward repetitions of words like 'numerous' and 'problems' within short spans. To improve your lexical score, you should incorporate a wider variety of precise academic vocabulary, ensure correct word forms and collocations, and avoid repetitive phrasing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

Your writing displays a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on simple or overly long, run-on complex sentences that lack proper punctuation control. For instance, the sentence starting with 'For instance, excessive consumption...' is a lengthy, comma-spliced run-on containing repeated clauses. There are frequent errors in grammar and punctuation, including missing articles ('education on proper and balanced diet'), awkward verb forms ('I agreed' instead of 'I agree'), and lack of subject-verb agreement or proper clause separation. These frequent errors cause some difficulty for the reader. To lift your grammatical score, you should practise writing a controlled mix of simple and complex sentences, paying close attention to punctuation boundaries, verb tenses, and article use to ensure your meaning is communicated clearly.

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

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