Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-07-31

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

A growing number of people rely on restaurants and convenience food (frozen food and packaged meals) rather than home-cooked food to supply most of their meals.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of eating this way?

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

Student answer (Band 6.5)

These days, some individuals prefer to eat outside and convenience or frozen food instead of homemade meals.

This essay will explicate the Benefits and drawbacks of eating like this in the upcomig paragraphs.

To start with advantages, eating out save people's time that they can utilize to explore different things. These days, every person is working, so, it becomes hard to manage home and office or college work together. Additionally, people can try different cuisines of different cultures that increase their knowledge about other countries. Moreover, eating in restaurants can strengthen the bonding of families or friends as they can spend their quality time by knowing each other's likings and dislikings about food. For example, according to a survey people are feeling more happy and confident if they are not cooking at home that saves their precious time that they are using in Gym, and playing different sports.

Moving to the disadvantages, Firstly, eating out everyday or consume frozen foods is not healhty option. To explain this, the food in the restaurants is stale sometimes and it contains a lot of salt, sugar and other preservatives that can increase the risk of obesity, heart attack or diabetes. Secondly, eating in restaurants on the daily basis is expensive rather than the homemade food. So, it can give the financial burden to families,. Finally, it weakens the family connection because preparing and eating together are the key factors to make the bond strong.

In conclusion, depending fully on restaurants has pros such as time saving and explore different foods and know about their cultures, but it can increase the health issues and financial problems that cannot be ignored.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5

The response addresses both the advantages and disadvantages of relying on convenience food. The ideas are relevant, such as time-saving and cultural exploration for advantages, and health risks and financial costs for disadvantages. However, the development is somewhat superficial. For instance, the claim that eating out makes people 'more happy and confident' is a broad generalization that lacks a logical link to the evidence provided. To reach a higher band, you should provide more specific, well-reasoned explanations for your points rather than listing them. The position is clear throughout, and all parts of the prompt are addressed.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The essay is organized into clear paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the argument. You use basic cohesive devices like 'To start with', 'Additionally', 'Moreover', and 'Moving to the disadvantages'. While these are functional, they are somewhat mechanical. The progression of ideas is generally logical, though the transition between the benefits of family bonding and the later claim that eating out 'weakens the family connection' is contradictory and lacks a nuanced explanation to resolve the tension between these two opposing points.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.5

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, using terms like 'preservatives', 'obesity', and 'financial burden'. However, there are some inaccuracies in word choice and collocation, such as 'eating out save people's time' (should be 'saves') and 'consume frozen foods' (should be 'consuming'). There is also a minor spelling error ('healhty'). The vocabulary is sufficient to convey your meaning, but it lacks the precision and flexibility required for higher bands. Expanding your use of collocations would improve the natural flow of your writing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While you attempt complex sentences, there are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with subject-verb agreement ('eating out save', 'people is working') and article usage. Punctuation is generally acceptable, but there are some awkward phrasings, such as 'eating in restaurants on the daily basis is expensive rather than the homemade food'. These errors do not impede communication, but they are frequent enough to prevent a higher score. Focusing on basic grammatical accuracy will significantly improve your writing.

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