Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-04

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 5.5)

In this fast-paced world, numerous numbers of individuals are relying on restaurants packaged meals and frozen food for most of their meals instead of home cooked ones. This essay will discuss advantages and disadvantages of this trend in following paragraphs.

Most people taking frozen food for most of their meals because they consider them as time saving that they can pick meal of their choice as there are many options available in market for these meals, they can get whatever they like and as they are ready to eat just heat it up and have their food ready. For instance, if a person leaving alone or with friends who don't have enough grocery to prepare meal at home wat they going to do is get a packaged food from a restaurant or get frozen food and heat it up in a micro and it's ready to eat.

Despite it's a time saving option this also impacting our physical and financial wellness, it looks like a cheaper meal for a day is not going to impact on your wallet but a study states that two individual working on a same salary one preferring home cooked meals and doing weekly groceries and other depending on outside meals have a major difference in their spending over the food, and other and main thing is our health these packaged and frozen foods do not have control on their ingredient's in order to increase shelf life for food they add preservatives and harmful ingredients to their products.

In conclusion, convivence is useful but being fully dependant on these meals will be harmful for overall health

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses both the advantages and disadvantages of relying on convenience food. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited. While you mention time-saving as an advantage and health/financial concerns as disadvantages, the arguments lack depth and specific, well-explained examples. The conclusion is also quite brief and does not fully summarize the main points discussed. To improve, ensure that each body paragraph provides a more thorough explanation of the points raised, moving beyond simple statements to more detailed analysis or illustrative examples that clearly connect to the prompt.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the structure. However, the use of cohesive devices is often mechanical or missing. For example, the transition between the advantage and disadvantage paragraphs is abrupt. There are also issues with sentence-level cohesion, such as the run-on sentence in the second paragraph: '...many options available in market for these meals, they can get whatever they like and as they are ready to eat just heat it up...'. Improving the use of linking words (e.g., 'furthermore', 'consequently', 'on the other hand') would help create a smoother flow between ideas.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task but lacks variety and precision. You rely on basic terms like 'good', 'bad', or 'get'. There are also some awkward collocations and word choices, such as 'numerous numbers of individuals' (redundant) and 'physical and financial wellness' (wellness is usually associated with health, not finance). Additionally, there are minor errors in word form, such as 'convivence' instead of 'convenience'. To reach a higher band, try to incorporate more topic-specific vocabulary related to nutrition, economics, and lifestyle choices, and ensure words are used in their correct context.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally impede clarity. Common issues include subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'Most people taking frozen food'), missing articles (e.g., 'in market'), and punctuation errors, such as comma splices. The sentence 'Despite it's a time saving option this also impacting...' is grammatically incorrect; it should be 'Despite it being a time-saving option, this also impacts...'. To improve, focus on mastering basic sentence construction and proofreading for common errors like verb tense consistency and proper punctuation.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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