Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-02

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)

In recent years, topic related to eating in restaurants and relying on convenience food such as frozen food and packaged meals instead of cooking yourself at homes has become a matter of considerable importance. Although, both perspectives has some merit, I believe that its causing health problems to many people mainly because of unhygiene and vegetable oils such as canola being used.

To begin with, those who support the idea that relying on restaurants and convenience food argue that some of the restaurants and convenience food is tastier than we cook at home. This is mainly because restaurants use same recipe with proper weighing of spices and everything. As a result, it is always tasty and an individual can enjoy the same good taste everytime he eats. For example, Mcdonalds sells junior chicken and everytime we eat we always enjoy it because of its similar taste and properly cooked.

On the other hand, there are strong arguments in favour of cooking at home. One of the main reasons is the quality of ingredients we use such as we can use clarified butter instead of vegetable oils and also high quality of organic vegetables instead of rotten vegetables. In addition, we can control the ingredients such as spices because sometimes eating way spicy also causes stomach problems. Consequently, eating from restaurants can have a negative impact on the health.

From my perspective, we should normally eat food that we cook ourselves at home because of the quality ingredients. Although, sometimes eating from restaurants and convenience foods is not a problem. I believe that only eating quality food is also not enough, a person should also focus on his physical fitness, thus going to gym plays an important role.

In conclusion, although relying on restaurants or convenience foods has some benefits but one should also consider the negative effects of that. So, food consumed from these areas should have a cap and should be eaten in limited quantity.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You successfully address all parts of the task by discussing both the advantages and disadvantages of relying on restaurants and convenience foods, presenting a clear position throughout the response. The main ideas are relevant, such as the consistency of restaurant meals and the health benefits of home cooking, but some of these ideas are developed unevenly. For instance, the advantage regarding McDonald's and spices is somewhat narrow and repetitive, focusing mainly on taste, whereas your points about home cooking and ingredient quality are explored a bit more fully. To move to a higher level, you should ensure that all supporting arguments are equally extended and supported with broader examples and deeper analysis rather than relying on brief, specific instances like fast-food items.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

Your essay has a coherent overall arrangement, and you make effective use of paragraphing to structure your thoughts, moving logically from an introduction to advantages, disadvantages, your personal perspective, and a conclusion. However, cohesion is sometimes faulty or mechanical. For example, transition phrases like 'To begin with' and 'On the other hand' are used, but referencing is occasionally unclear, such as in the sentence 'although relying on restaurants or convenience foods has some benefits but one should also consider...' where the clause structure disrupts the natural flow. To improve cohesion further, try to vary your cohesive devices and ensure that referencing pronouns clearly connect back to their intended antecedents without creating repetitive sentence patterns.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task and successfully attempt some less common vocabulary, such as 'convenience food', 'clarified butter', and 'organic vegetables'. However, there are some noticeable inaccuracies in word choice, collocation, and word form that keep your writing at this level. For instance, writing 'topic related to eating' misses an article, 'cooking yourself at homes' contains a plural noun error, and phrases like 'way spicy' and 'unhygiene' are unnatural collocations or incorrect word forms (unhygienic). To reach a higher lexical band, focus on refining your word choices to ensure natural collocations, check your word forms carefully, and expand your repertoire of precise, less common items.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence forms throughout your essay, demonstrating an ability to construct multi-clause sentences using conjunctions such as 'although' and 'because'. There are, however, some errors in grammar and punctuation that appear across your writing, though they rarely impede communication. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues such as 'both perspectives has some merit', missing articles in 'cooking yourself at homes' and 'going to gym', and minor punctuation oversights. To achieve a higher score in this criterion, you need to produce a higher proportion of error-free sentences when attempting complex grammatical structures, while paying closer attention to articles, prepositions, and verb agreements.

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

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