Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-15
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 4.5)
This modern world is going through the biggegt change of this era, nowadays a largest number of people are working to manage their livlihood which drives them directly to save cooking time by having meals at restaurants or having processed food. It leads to some pros and cons which would be disscussed in further essay.
On the one hand, people are becoming workholic and they do not find sufficient time to prepare homemade food so they try to have frozen food at home which will not consume extra time as it save their time of peeling, chopping or cooking. Moreover, most of the people are having social accounts where they are active all the time, being workholic and sociable people wants themshelves active in order to maintain their profile which gives direct encouragement to have family dinners outside or having their friends with them to show that staus.
On the other hand,
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 4.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 4.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 4.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0
The response addresses the prompt by attempting to discuss both advantages and disadvantages of relying on restaurants and convenience food. However, the essay is incomplete, breaking off mid-sentence after only 152 words, which severely violates the 250-word minimum requirement. Because the length requirement is not met, the development of ideas is heavily curtailed. The introduction presents some relevant concepts such as time-saving and social pressures, but the second body paragraph remains unfinished, preventing full exploration of the disadvantages. Consequently, the task is only partially addressed, leading to a band score of 4.0 for Task Achievement.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 4.5
The text demonstrates some organizational structure with a clear introductory paragraph and transition phrases like 'On the one hand'. However, due to the very short length and the abrupt cutoff in the middle of the second body paragraph, it is difficult to fully assess paragraphing and overall progression. Cohesive devices are attempted, but referencing and logical flow are interrupted by the sudden termination of the text. Because the response lacks a concluding paragraph and leaves ideas completely undeveloped, the overall arrangement feels fragmented, which corresponds to a band score of 4.5.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The student attempts to use some moderately ambitious vocabulary, such as 'workholic' (workaholic) and 'convenience food'. However, there are numerous spelling errors throughout the text, including 'biggegt', 'livlihood', 'disscussed', 'workholic', 'themshelves', and 'staus'. The vocabulary is also repetitive in places, relying heavily on basic phrases. While meaning is generally conveyed in the first half of the response, lexical control is weak due to frequent typographical and spelling errors, warranting a band score of 5.0.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The student attempts complex sentence structures, such as relative clauses and conditional ideas, but these attempts are often marred by grammatical inaccuracies and run-on sentences. For example, the opening sentence is a comma splice linking multiple independent clauses: 'This modern world is going through the biggegt change of this era, nowadays a largest number of people are working...'. Subject-verb agreement errors are also present, such as 'people wants themshelves active'. Although a mix of structures is attempted, the high frequency of grammatical and punctuation errors restricts the grammar score to a band 5.0.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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