Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-07
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 5.0)
In modern era, rather than consuming home cooked meals, more people are relying on frozen or packaged food of hotels. This essay will discuss the disadvantages of this trend with a few advantages.
On one hand, Restaurants are providing variety of dishes, people are addicted to mindless eating habits that eventually making them gain weight.Thus, creating several health issues. For instance, Restaurants often use high saturated oils to cook meals; As they are cheaper to buy and widely available in market. Hence, cardiovascular diseases are on rise as people are shifting away from home cooked meals.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 4.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0
The response is significantly under the 250-word minimum requirement, which severely impacts the ability to develop ideas. While the essay attempts to address the prompt by mentioning both advantages and disadvantages, the content is extremely limited. The introduction is present, but the body paragraph is underdeveloped, and the essay lacks a conclusion. Because the response is less than 100 words, it fails to provide the necessary depth or support for the arguments presented. To improve, you must expand on your points with specific examples and ensure you cover all parts of the prompt in sufficient detail.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
The essay uses basic cohesive devices such as 'On one hand' and 'For instance,' which helps with the flow. However, the overall structure is incomplete. The paragraphing is insufficient because the essay ends abruptly after only one body paragraph. There is no clear progression of ideas because the response is too short to establish a logical argument. To improve, ensure you have a clear introduction, at least two distinct body paragraphs for advantages and disadvantages, and a concluding summary.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The vocabulary is generally adequate for basic communication but lacks the range and precision required for higher bands. Phrases like 'mindless eating habits' and 'cardiovascular diseases' are relevant, but there is a reliance on simple phrasing. There are also some awkward collocations, such as 'frozen or packaged food of hotels,' which is not standard English. To improve, focus on using more precise academic vocabulary and collocations related to nutrition and lifestyle trends.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The essay contains several grammatical errors that affect clarity. For example, 'In modern era' is missing an article ('In the modern era'), and 'eventually making them gain weight' is a sentence fragment. There are also punctuation issues, such as the incorrect use of a semicolon before 'As they are cheaper.' The sentence structures are mostly simple or contain errors when attempting complexity. To improve, focus on subject-verb agreement, correct article usage, and ensuring that every sentence has a clear subject and main verb.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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