Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-13

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 the contemporary era, the debate about about more and more people preferred to consume fast food has become a subject of intense discourse. While some individuals advocate that packaged food is easy to prepare and it is time efficient, Others contended that there are more negative effects on restaurant or pre cooked food than home meals. In my opinion, there are lot of disadvantages to prefer the hotel food, when compared with the benefits of home prepared food. In this essay i am going to explain and give reason why family cooked food is more better than the outside food.

On the one hand, there are compelling reasons that supporting fast/packaged foods. The most prominent reason is convenience and time efficiency. This is largely because working people who does not have sufficient time to cook their meals for lunch and dinner has to depend on office food or online delivery food applications. For an instance, a recent study regarding food consuming demonstrated that people affected with most health issues are consuming instant meals, rather than preparing a home made fresh meal. Therefore, it is understandable why some people prefer to addict the ready to serve food.

On the other hand, lack of knowledge over the advantages of self prepared fresh food leads the people to attract more over the packaged foods. The primary justification for this is to make a schedule what to eat and allocate some time for food preparation. Divide your meals and try to include more vegetables and fruit salads in your diet plan. This process clearly improves health, reduce the risk of hazard diseases and keep you in good shape.

In conclusion, although instant foods are easy to prepare and time-efficient, I believe that home cooked food is more hygiene and good for your health. Therefore, it is clear that home made food has numerous advantages than the outside food.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt by discussing both the advantages and disadvantages of eating restaurant and convenience food, fulfilling the core requirements of the task. The writer takes a clear position in the introduction stating that there are more disadvantages to consuming hotel or convenience food compared to home-cooked meals. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited and uneven. For instance, the second body paragraph attempts to discuss the advantages of convenience foods like time efficiency, but the supporting example regarding health issues is slightly contradictory and under-developed. Similarly, the third paragraph shifts abruptly into advice-giving ('Divide your meals and try to include...') rather than fully analysing the disadvantages analytically. Despite these minor underdeveloped areas, all parts of the prompt are addressed to a satisfactory level, meeting the criteria for Band 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs signaled by transitional markers ('On the one hand', 'On the other hand'), and a concluding paragraph. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different perspectives. However, cohesion at the sentence level is occasionally faulty or mechanical. For example, the referencing and connection of ideas in sentences like 'This is largely because working people who does not have sufficient time...' display lapses in agreement and flow. Furthermore, the progression in the third paragraph is disrupted by a sudden change in tone into imperative instructions ('Divide your meals...'), which weakens the logical flow of the argument. Cohesive devices are present but sometimes misapplied, fitting the Band 6.0 descriptors.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The writer uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common lexical items such as 'contemporary era', 'intense discourse', and 'convenience and time efficiency'. However, there are noticeable inaccuracies in word choice, collocation, and phrasing throughout the text, such as 'preferred to consume fast food', 'hotel food' to mean restaurant food, 'hazard diseases' instead of chronic diseases, and 'more better' (which is a double comparative). Furthermore, there is an instance of awkward lexical phrasing like 'prefer to addict the ready to serve food'. While these errors do not severely impede communication, they restrict the lexical score to a Band 5.5 because the vocabulary control lacks the precision and flexibility required for higher bands.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response contains a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating an attempt at varied grammatical structures. However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are several frequent errors in subject-verb agreement and tense usage, such as 'more and more people preferred', 'working people who does not have', and 'home cooked food is more hygiene' (using an adjective instead of a noun). Additionally, introductory phrasing contains errors such as 'debate about about' and 'In this essay i am going'. Complex structures often contain faults or awkward phrasing, which places the grammar control firmly at the Band 5.0 level, where frequent errors in complex forms can cause some difficulty for the reader.

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

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