Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-22

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people say that the best way to discourage smoking is to make smoking illegal in public places. Other people say that this is not enough and that other measures are needed.

Discuss both these views, and give your opinion.

Give reasons for your answer, and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 5.5)

It is true that smoking is a serious cause of health problem.Some individual think that it should be banned on public places ,others believe that it requires a lot of other action to discourage smoking.This essay will discuss the both views along with my point of view in the upcoming paragharphs.

To begin with,there are number of reasons are support to former veiw.First one is that making smoking illegal in public places can discourage the people from smoking .This is because it protects non-smoker to second hand smoke,which can harm their health .For example ,in the shopping center,public parks,where smoker freely do smoking without any fear,harmful smoke which they emitt, badly effect the other peole espeacilly the children and women.If government banned the smoking in these places ,it would be safe for other people.In addition to this restricting the smoking on public places also help to reduce the intake of smoking of smoker ,beacuse wnen they have to leave the area for smoking ,they feel embarrased and they can try to avoid the smoking which is benefical for both as public as well as for smoker.

However, there are some reasons behind the later veiw as other actions also necesarry for tackle this problem.Firstly,government should increase the price of cigarette.due to this people cannot afford it easily and government should take higher tax from seller of drugs espeacilly from cigarette . In this case young peole or middle class people cannot buy it and they can leave their bad habit of smoking due to less availability of smoking .Secondly awerness should be necesarry for reducing the usage of smoking. Government should oraginsethe camps in the citie and villiage due to this people can get knowledge of how much harmful smoking for their health .

In conclusion,aloughth banning the bmoking on public places helpful but according to my point of veiw other actions as awarness and increasing the tax on harmful drugs also help to get rid of this problem .

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AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both views on public smoking bans and additional measures needed, while also presenting a clear overall position. The ideas are generally relevant, covering health protection, economic deterrents through taxation, and public awareness campaigns. However, some ideas lack full extension and suffer from over-generalisation or mild under-development in places, such as the brief treatment of cigarette pricing. Nevertheless, the main task requirements are met appropriately, aligning closely with the Band 6 descriptors where all parts are addressed and main positions are maintained throughout the text.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays a clear overall progression with standard paragraphing dividing the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Cohesive devices are used to connect ideas, such as 'To begin with', 'In addition to this', and 'However'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical, as seen in minor awkward transitions and punctuation spacing issues (e.g., missing spaces after commas and periods throughout the text). Paragraphing is utilised, but the flow between sentences is occasionally hindered by mechanical referencing, placing this performance at Band 6.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common items such as 'embarrased', 'availability', and 'awareness'. However, there are notable spelling and word-choice errors throughout the essay, such as 'paragharphs', 'veiw', 'emitt', 'peole', 'espeacilly', 'beacuse', 'awerness', 'oraginsethe', and 'aloughth'. While these errors do not completely impede communication, their frequency prevents the score from reaching a higher band. The lexical resource is minimally sufficient for a Band 5.5, reflecting adequate control with recurring mechanical inaccuracies.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some capability to construct multi-clause sentences. However, there are frequent errors in grammar, punctuation, and article usage, such as missing articles ('a serious cause of health problem'), subject-verb agreement issues ('there are number of reasons are support'), and persistent punctuation errors (spacing around punctuation marks). These errors occur frequently and require some effort from the reader to decode the exact meaning, which places the grammatical performance solidly at Band 5.0.

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