Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-10-31

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)

In this 21st century, we humans want everything to be fast which have encouraged many people to eat fast food and manufactured food and drinks just because it is convinent and faster. We have also been hearing many health problem been rising due to such foods and drinks where many people believe it is because of sugary items in the food but there have been many other items also which affect our health.

Firstly, many people belive making sugary products expensive could discourage people to consume such items less but it is completely opposite. For an example, we all know smoking is harmful where many nations have been incresing taxes to discourage people to consume it but still it is the most sold item in many countries. So rather than incresing the price, organizations can encourage people for fitness, give awareness to people of the long term side effect which will somewhat discourage people. As in current trend many people who join gym or any fitness activity cut off their sugary item themself becasue they feel it helps them improve their health. So rather than incresing prices, we can have awareness, have certain lessons in schools of the side effects and attract more people to fitness which could be more eefective than just incresing the prices.

Secondly, there have also been many patients who have low blood sugar who need sugary items for emergency just incresing prices could affect such people who really need sugary items for health. As many manufactured drinks and food have many side effects in health not just because of sugar, also because of many other chemicals used.

In conclusion, incresing prices could discourage some people but having awareness and encouraging people to join fitness can be better alternative.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

Your position is clear: you disagree that higher prices are the best way to reduce sugar consumption, and you offer alternatives such as public awareness and fitness programmes. The comparison with tobacco taxes is relevant, while the point about people with low blood sugar adds another perspective. However, some ideas are less fully developed than others. The smoking example assumes that higher taxes have not reduced consumption, but it does not explain or support that claim. The medical-needs point is also brief and could be made more precise by distinguishing emergency treatment from ordinary sugary products. Explain how your alternatives would change people’s choices, and address the argument that price increases may still reduce consumption for some groups, to develop the response more fully.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a coherent overall arrangement: an introduction, two body paragraphs signalled by “Firstly” and “Secondly”, and a conclusion that restates your view. The main ideas are generally easy to follow, and the conclusion connects to the proposed alternatives. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical, particularly through repeated use of “So rather than increasing prices” and repeated references to “people”. Some links between ideas are also unclear: the sentence about other chemicals follows the point about patients with low blood sugar without explaining how the two points relate. Use more varied transitions and make the relationship between each example and your main argument explicit. Breaking up the long first body paragraph would also help the progression feel more controlled.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough vocabulary to communicate the main argument, including topic-related terms such as “manufactured food”, “taxes”, “side effects” and “fitness”. There are also attempts at more specific expressions, such as “long term” effects and “low blood sugar”. However, spelling errors are noticeable, including “convinient”, “belive”, “incresing” and “becasue”, and some word choices or collocations are awkward, such as “consume such items less” and “cut off their sugary item”. Repetition of “people”, “sugary” and “prices” also limits flexibility. Aim for accurate spelling and more natural phrasing, for example “reduce their consumption” and “cut down on sugary foods and drinks”.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and complex sentence forms, including clauses introduced by “where” and “because”, and the overall meaning is usually understandable. However, errors in sentence structure and agreement are frequent enough to make some sentences difficult to process. For example, “which have encouraged many people” does not agree clearly with its subject, and “many health problem been rising” is missing necessary grammatical elements. The opening sentence also combines several ideas without clear control, while “just increasing prices could affect such people who really need sugary items for health” has an awkward clause structure. Practise forming complete sentences with clear subjects and verbs, and check agreement, articles and punctuation when joining clauses.

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