Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-18

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)

Nowdays, increasing number of individuals depend on frozen meals from the convenience store or prefer eating at restaurants over home-cooked meals. This has a number of advantages and disadvantages.The pros are it, saves time and increases productivity. Cons are that it can cause serious health related problems.

To begin with, in this fast paced world frozen and restaurant meals helps to save time spent on cooking, going out for grocery shopping and eleminates the process of thinking what dish needs to prepared for different times. For example, ready to eat cup noodles requires nothing but just hot water and it gets cooked in less than 2 minutes. Not only this some Indian breads have a long cooking process which can be irritating and time consuming. Therefore, there are several frozen Indian breads available in supermarkets which help to make life easier.

Nevertheless, the major disadvantage of these meals are the fact that they are processed. Frozen food products are subjected to number of chemical and food additives to increase the shelf life, this kills the nutrients and can have slow, but long term health effects like obesity, colestrol and heart diseases . For instance buying a frozen chicken will have less protien as comapred to the one from butchery. Futhermore, restaurants add food enhancers and colours to make the dish appealing which is why many youngsters savour it and love to eat outside home.

In conclusion, frozen and restaurant meals save us our precious time but the added food chemicals can cause harm to our physical health.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the advantages and disadvantages of relying on restaurants and convenience food. A clear position is established from the introduction and maintained throughout the essay. Ideas are extended with relevant examples, such as mentioning cup noodles, Indian flatbreads, and the health impacts like obesity and cholesterol. However, some arguments lack deeper elaboration, such as the claim regarding productivity, which aligns the response with Band 6.0 descriptors for Task Achievement. The explanations are generally relevant and clear, though a broader exploration of the socioeconomic factors driving this trend would have elevated the task response to a higher band level.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, two body paragraphs addressing pros and cons respectively, and a brief conclusion. Cohesive devices are employed to signal transitions, such as 'To begin with', 'Nevertheless', and 'In conclusion'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical, as seen in the phrasing 'The pros are it, saves time' and occasional awkward linking between sentences. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct themes. While the logical progression is generally maintained, minor mechanical errors in cohesion prevent the text from achieving a Band 7.0 score, making Band 6.0 a fitting reflection of the organizational clarity.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'fast-paced world', 'convenience store', 'food additives', and 'shelf life'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors throughout the text, including 'Nowdays', 'eleminates', 'protien', 'comapred', and 'colestrol' instead of cholesterol. While these errors do not impede overall communication, they reflect the limitations characteristic of Band 6.0. The writer shows an understanding of topic-specific terminology, but precision and spelling control need improvement to reach the next band level.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The response displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional structures reasonably well. There are, however, a number of grammatical errors and punctuation lapses, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('restaurant and convenience meals helps', 'ready to eat cup noodles requires') and comma splices ('The pros are it, saves time and increases productivity. Cons are that...'). Despite these recurring errors in grammar and punctuation, they rarely impede communication, allowing the reader to follow the arguments without serious difficulty. This performance fits comfortably within the Band 6.0 criteria.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.