Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-30

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people say that physical education classes are an important part of a child's education. Others believe that it is more important to focus on academics during school time.

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 5.0)

There is a debate about wether schools should prioritize physical education or acadmic subjects. While both views have merit, Ibeleive that a balance between the two is essential for a child's holistic development.

One one hand, focusing purely on academics is seen as more practical. The primary purposeof school is often considerd to be reparing students founiversity and competitive careers.Subjects like mathematics, science, and languages directly determine exam results, which are crucial for university admission.

On th other hand, physical education plays an irreplaceable role. Firstly, it is vital for heath.With childhood obesity and screen time increasing rapidly, PE classes are often the only opurtunity children have to exercise

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

The response attempts to address both views on physical education versus academics and introduces a personal opinion in the introduction. However, due to the severe length restriction, the ideas are heavily under-developed and abruptly cut off in the middle of discussing the second view. The student mentions that focusing on academics is practical for university and career preparation, and begins to touch upon health benefits for physical education, but the prompt is only partially addressed because the essay is incomplete. Consequently, the score is significantly impacted by the under-length requirement, standing well below the standard for a complete task response.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

Despite being extremely brief, the writing displays some basic organizational structure. The student uses standard introductory framing ('While both views have merit...') and transitional markers such as 'One one hand' and 'On th other hand' to separate the contrasting viewpoints. However, paragraphing is disrupted by the abrupt ending, and the lack of a conclusion means overall progression is absent. Cohesive devices are attempted but mechanical, and referencing is partially affected by typing errors. Overall, the structural framework is visible, but the lack of completion limits coherence.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The student demonstrates a minimally adequate vocabulary for discussing education topics, utilizing terms like 'holistic development', 'practical', and 'competitive careers'. However, there are numerous noticeable spelling errors throughout the text, such as 'wether' instead of whether, 'acadmic' instead of academic, 'Ibeleive' instead of I believe, 'purposeof' instead of purpose of, 'considerd' instead of considered, 'founiversity' instead of for university, 'opurtunity' instead of opportunity, and missing terminal punctuation. These errors highlight a limited control over spelling and word boundaries, restricting the lexical score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as concessive clauses ('While both views have merit, I believe...') and relative clauses. There are instances of good grammatical control in the opening sentences, but the writing is marred by frequent punctuation and spacing errors, alongside omitted letters. While the errors do not entirely impede communication, the very short text limits the variety of structures that can be reliably demonstrated, and the persistent mechanical and spelling mistakes constrain the accuracy score.

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