Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-08-18

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 6.0)

Relying on restaurants and convenience food for most meals is supper common now ,especially with busy schedules. Most people now in urban centers go for restaurants meals due to time factor, very busy to fix meal before leaving the house and even come back late with convenience food.

Traffic also contribute to this , many did not have any choice than to leave their house early in other to beat up the traffic , this encourages them not to cook and by the time this is done for many times they get used to packaged meals .

One of the advantages of convenience food is TIME SAVE as i said early ,there will not be any need to go shopping ,chopping, cooking or cleaning that can take up to five to ten hour .

Another one is mental load reduction, meal planning , budgeting ,deciding recipes ,what to cook at a particular time take mental energy which mostly the working class and new generations of our youth try to avoid .

The disadvantages of eating restaurants meals , one is COST, food their is usually two-three times more expensive per meal then cooking at home which lead to financial drain.

Additionally ,food safety and transparency : one will not be able to see how it was handled, prepared take for instance some people are allergies to salt, sugar which you will not be able to control such if one is the type that eat out.

Nutritional value ,food tend to be higher in salt, sugar, unhealthy oil which is impossible to control such balance , restaurants meals are for taste and not balance .

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses both the advantages and disadvantages of relying on convenience food. The ideas are relevant, covering time-saving and mental load reduction as benefits, and cost, safety, and nutritional concerns as drawbacks. However, the development is somewhat limited; the points are presented as a list rather than fully explored arguments. For instance, the discussion on nutritional value is brief and lacks a clear concluding thought. To reach a higher band, you should expand on your examples and ensure that each paragraph has a clear topic sentence and a more cohesive structure to fully develop your position.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the progression of ideas. However, the use of cohesive devices is somewhat mechanical and occasionally inaccurate. For example, phrases like 'Another one is' and 'one is COST' are simplistic. There are also issues with referencing and sentence flow, such as the transition between the introduction and the first body paragraph. The logical flow is present, but the connections between sentences could be smoother and more sophisticated to improve the overall readability and coherence of the argument.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

You have an adequate range of vocabulary to discuss the topic, using terms like 'convenience food', 'nutritional value', and 'financial drain'. However, there are several errors in word choice and spelling, such as 'supper common' (super common), 'time factor', and 'food their is' (food there is). Additionally, some phrasing is slightly unnatural, such as 'beat up the traffic'. While your vocabulary is sufficient to convey your meaning, you need to work on precision and collocation to move into the higher bands. Expanding your range of academic vocabulary would also be beneficial.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally impede the flow. Common issues include subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'Traffic also contribute'), punctuation errors (e.g., missing commas or incorrect usage), and awkward sentence construction (e.g., 'many did not have any choice than to leave their house early in other to beat up the traffic'). While the meaning is generally clear, the high frequency of errors in basic grammar and sentence structure prevents a higher score. Focusing on proofreading for subject-verb agreement and article usage would significantly improve your accuracy.

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