Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-10-06

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)

Nowadays most of the manufactured foods and drinks contain high levels of sugar and artificial sweeteners. This may cause many health-related problems, particularly in children, and sugary products should be made more expensive or clearly mentioned on labels that more sugar is harmful for children.

Firstly, in the current era people are mostly eating highly processed food and soft drinks like cola, Fanta, and Pepsi. This kind of soft drink contains high levels of sugar, which can cause health-related problems like failure of the lung, diabetes, or high blood pressure. To overcome this situation, the government should try to hike the price of raw sugar. Because of this, the manufacturer hikes the product price. This could impact people's pockets, so they avoid buying manufactured food and drinks.

Secondly, if the government increases the price of sugary products, then it also impacts poor people in the country, because some products like toast, whole wheat biscuits, and muffins are used as breakfast for poor people, so the price causes serious issues for the government also. They should see different ways to overcome this situation. This is not the only way to reduce the consumption of manufactured products. Try to educate people about sugar and sugar products and what kind of impact they had on their lives, and write on the product label that this much amount of sugar intake led them to serious health issues.

In conclusion, manufactured foods and drinks are very harmful for people of any age, so their must some limitations, but increasing the price of sugary food will imopact on poor people

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt by expressing a partial agreement or presenting arguments on both sides, which aligns with addressing the task partially. Your position is generally understandable, but some ideas are limited and under-developed. For instance, in the second body paragraph, you shift suddenly to discussing the impact on poor people and alternative solutions such as education and product labeling, rather than fully sustaining a clear argument on whether taxation is the right approach. To move to a higher band, you need to present a fully developed, consistent position throughout, ensuring every main idea is extended and supported with clear reasoning and relevant examples rather than introducing tangential thoughts.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement and follows a recognisable paragraph structure with basic discourse markers like 'Firstly', 'Secondly', and 'In conclusion'. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical and referencing is occasionally unclear, which prevents a smoother progression of ideas. For example, in the final sentence, the transition into the concluding thoughts lacks a strong cohesive link, and the abrupt shift of focus between paragraphs hinders logical flow. To achieve a higher level of coherence and progression, you should use a wider variety of cohesive devices more flexibly and ensure that each paragraph builds logically upon the previous one with clear, precise referencing.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms like 'manufactured foods', 'artificial sweeteners', and 'processed food'. However, there are noticeable lexical errors in word choice, collocation, and word formation that restrict the range, such as 'the manufacturer hikes' instead of 'manufacturers would hike', and 'imopact' due to a spelling error. Furthermore, phrases like 'hike the price of raw sugar' lack complete naturalness in collocation. To improve your lexical score, you need to incorporate a wider selection of less common academic vocabulary with accurate word formation and precise stylistic control, while minimizing spelling and word-choice slips.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

Your writing displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some control over sentence structure. Nevertheless, there is a limited range of complex structures attempted, and frequent errors in grammar and punctuation persist. Examples include subject-verb agreement and tense inconsistencies, such as 'their must some limitations' instead of 'there must be some limitations', and missing articles or incorrect prepositions in clauses like 'led them to serious health issues'. To reach a higher band, you need to produce more error-free sentences while incorporating a wider variety of complex grammatical structures with consistent accuracy in punctuation and verb forms.

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