Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-03

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)

There has been a dramatic increase in the restaurant foods and packaged foods consumptions. Due to busy life schedule, people are following ready to eat foods. There are both pros and cons for this situation. Both of them will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

Discussing the advantages, the prominent benefit is time saving option. Due to the busy life schedule, people often prefer to eat ready made foods. For example, a jobber who is working for 8 hours shift and takes 2 hours of travelling, often feels tried. Since they exhausted, they won't able to cook fresh food. Furthermore, these foods often sounds good tastes than home-cooked food. This further escalates the restaurant customers. In addition to this, home-cooked food requires pre-preparations and some items may utilize many utensils. So, cooking food will potentially gives more works than eating outside foods.

However, there are some disadvantages too. For instance, these foods often found unhealthier than the foods prepared at home. Furthermore, there have been many reports claimed that processed foods are dangerous to our health which causes several diseases like heart problem, obesity, stomach problem and many more. Heavily relying on processed foods may reduces the life exceptancy of the user. Eaters mostly look at the tastier foods rather than healthier options and these foods often served well at the restaurants.

To conclude the discussion, it can be that though there are many advantages such as time saving option, involve less work, and provide better taste, the disadvantages that unhealthier foods, reduce life exceptancy and invite several diseases outweigh the merits for the situation.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses both the advantages and disadvantages of relying on convenience food. The position is clear throughout, and the main ideas—time-saving versus health risks—are relevant. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited. For instance, the example of the 'jobber' is a bit simplistic, and the discussion on health risks could be more nuanced by mentioning specific nutritional deficiencies or the long-term societal impact. While the task is fully addressed, the supporting arguments lack depth and rely on generalisations. To reach a higher band, you should expand on your examples and provide more detailed explanations for your claims.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The essay is logically organised into clear paragraphs, with an introduction, body paragraphs for pros and cons, and a conclusion. Cohesive devices such as 'Furthermore', 'In addition to this', and 'However' are used to link ideas. However, the use of these devices is sometimes mechanical or slightly repetitive. Additionally, there are minor issues with referencing and flow, such as the transition between the discussion of taste and the effort required for cooking. The paragraphing is appropriate, but the internal cohesion within paragraphs could be improved by varying the linking phrases and ensuring smoother transitions between sentences.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The vocabulary is adequate for the task, allowing you to convey your meaning clearly. You use some topic-specific terms like 'processed foods', 'ready-made', and 'life expectancy'. However, there are several instances of awkward word choices and inaccuracies, such as 'jobber' (which is not standard in this context), 'sounds good tastes', and 'gives more works'. These errors do not impede communication, but they do limit the precision of your writing. To improve, focus on learning common collocations and ensuring that your word choices are natural and appropriate for an academic context.

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, such as 'they won't able to cook', 'these foods often found unhealthier', and 'may reduces'. Punctuation is generally functional, but there are errors in subject-verb agreement and verb forms throughout the text. These errors are noticeable and occasionally distract the reader, though they do not prevent the message from being understood. To achieve a higher score, you need to focus on consistent control of basic grammar, particularly verb tense and modal verb usage.

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