Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-28

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)

Smoking is injurious to health. But people who are addicted to smoking, they do not seem to understand. So, some individuals believe that in order to prevent people for smoking it should be banned in public places. However, others think that banning is not enough but there should also be other measures to stop it. This essay will discuss both the views.

I strongly believe that, there should be other measures to discourage masses from smoking. Firstly, there should be eye catching hoardings on the roads. Which educate people to choose a healthy lifestyle over smoking. Furthermore, social media plays a vital role to influence mankind. There should be advertisements and social media pages which may warn and aware smokers about the serious side effects of smoking. Moreover, there should be educational camps in the urban and sub-urab areas. Through which, the guides can change the vision of smokers by defining certain helath issues by using slide show and video recordings of diseases like mouth ulcers, liver and kidney failuress etcerta.

On the other hand, banning smoking in public areas is also a efficent way to stop people from smoking. Becuase people who inhale the smoke of the ciggerates are equally effected as a smoker. So, if there is a legal ban on smoking people may stay away from it for a certain time. For example, a person who is addicted to smoke in every hour they may tend to be patience gradually. By which they may learn to control themselves from smoking. Moving further, putting a ban on it will also prevent people from buying cigerattes and vapes from the nearby public places. Which will ultimately stops them by using it more frequently.

To sum up, although making smoking illegal can be benificial to discourage smoking but there should be some steps like public awareness, social media

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response6.0
Coherence and Cohesion6.0
Lexical Resource5.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the prompt by discussing both views—banning smoking in public places and implementing alternative measures—while clearly stating the writer's position in favour of additional measures. Ideas are introduced and supported with examples, such as educational campaigns and the impact of second-hand smoke. However, some arguments lack full extension and the conclusion cuts off abruptly. Despite this, the main tenets of the task are adequately covered, earning a solid Band 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay is divided into paragraphs, though the conclusion is incomplete. There is a logical progression overall, moving from the introduction to the writer's viewpoint in the second paragraph, and the opposing view in the third. Cohesive devices such as 'Firstly', 'Furthermore', 'Moreover', and 'On the other hand' are employed to guide the reader, although referencing and sentence boundary punctuation (such as fragment sentences like 'Which educate people...') sometimes lead to mechanical or faulty cohesion.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for the task, attempting less common items such as 'injurious', 'hoardings', 'efficient', and 'gradually'. However, there are notable spelling and word-choice errors throughout the text, including 'sub-urab', 'helath', 'failuress', 'etcerta', 'ciggerates', 'effected', and 'benificial'. While these do not impede overall communication, they restrict the lexical score to Band 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms. However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are several sentence fragment issues, such as 'Which educate people to choose a healthy lifestyle over smoking' and 'Which will ultimately stops them'. Other errors include subject-verb agreement issues like 'people who are addicted to smoking, they do not seem' and punctuation mistakes. These errors occur frequently enough to cause occasional difficulty for the reader, placing the response in Band 5.0.

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