Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-10-07

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)

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. This essay discusses my opinion on this aurgement.

In my opinion, Increasing the prices of those products containing high level of sugar have a positive approach.It can help to reduce the consumer demand.IThis could have beneficial effects on people's health. People can reduce their intake and could use healthy products as alternatives. For example, it is possible that due to high price of the soft drinks, people may replace them with water, which is a beneficial source for the health.

Another advantage is that high prices will encourage the producers to reduce the amount of sugar, otherwise companies may face the financial loss. High prices also help government to collect revenue that can be used to improve the nutritional education and healthier programs.

Admittedly, low-income people may be unable to afford expensive sugary products and soft drinks. This problem can be adressed by balancing taxation with affordable access to healthier foods and public education about nutrition.

In conclusion, Many food and drinks products contain high level of sugar which can cause health problems. increasing the rate can be a suitable solution by which the people consume less sugar and use healthy affordable alternatives. It could be a problem for the low-income people to purchase sugar products but can be adressed by using healthy food products which have affordable prices.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

Your position is clear: you support making sugary products more expensive, and you give relevant reasons, including reduced consumer demand, healthier substitutions, pressure on producers to reduce sugar, and tax revenue for nutrition programmes. The soft-drink-to-water example helps illustrate one point. However, several ideas are asserted rather than explained, especially how higher prices would lead manufacturers to reformulate products and how revenue would improve health. The low-income concern is acknowledged, but the proposed response could be developed further. The response also does not meet the 250-word minimum: it contains 219 words, and the 30 words copied from the task prompt are not counted. Develop your reasons with explanation or examples to address the task more fully.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a recognisable overall structure: an introduction, supporting points, a concession, and a conclusion. Paragraphing generally helps the reader follow the argument, and linking expressions such as “Another advantage,” “Admittedly,” and “In conclusion” signal the stages of your discussion. However, progression within the body is sometimes abrupt: the point about government revenue is added without explaining its connection to the earlier argument. Some references are also unclear or repetitive, particularly the repeated use of “those products” and “it.” The conclusion largely restates earlier claims rather than bringing the reasoning together. Use clearer links between each claim and its explanation, and ensure pronouns have an unmistakable reference.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main argument, including “consumer demand,” “alternatives,” “low-income people,” and “nutritional education.” There are also attempts at more formal phrasing, such as “beneficial effects” and “financial loss.” However, several word choices and collocations are inaccurate or awkward, which limits precision: “a positive approach,” “high level of sugar,” “collect revenue,” and “increase the rate” do not express the intended ideas naturally. Spelling errors such as “aurgement” and “adressed” are noticeable, and some wording is repetitive, especially “healthy” and “products.” Build a more precise range of collocations for taxation, consumption, and public health, and proofread spelling.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including a conditional structure in “otherwise companies may face the financial loss” and a concession beginning “Admittedly.” Most of the argument remains understandable, but errors in sentence construction, agreement, articles, and punctuation are frequent enough to affect accuracy. For example, “Increasing the prices … have” has a subject–verb agreement problem, while “people may replace them with water, which is a beneficial source” has an unclear grammatical reference. Capitalisation and spacing are also inconsistent, as in “In my opinion, Increasing” and “approach.It.” Practise building accurate sentences around one main idea, checking agreement and articles, and proofreading punctuation before submitting.

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