Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-05

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)

Irrefutably, meals are very important for people to survive. Recently, many people are preferred to eat in restaurants and ready to eat food rather than eating at home. This essay will shed some light on the favorable as well as uncanny repercussions of eating outside food and home cooked meals.

There are a few meritorious outcomes of to consume a instant foods. Numbers are increasing of people to eat at restaurants because nowadays everyone are busy to their life and they do not get a time to cook a meal at home. Therefore, many individuals preferred to eat instant foods and these food are easy to prepare in a less time with zero efforts. For example, in packaged meals people only have to add some water and microwave it for few seconds and your food is ready to eat.

There are several deleterious effects of frozen and packaged meals which cannot be overlooked. Most important factor is that frozen foods are not healthy for human body, you do not get the enough nutrients and vitamins. Also, restaurants does not take care of the hygiene. For instance, individuals can suffer from many health problems such as food poisoning, vomiting and many more.

Nevertheless, home cooked food has so many benefits, individuals can prepare their food by their choice and taste. Moreover, people can get good amount of nutrients and they can keep their health safe by avoiding unhygienic food at restaurants. Lastly, once in month is okay to consume ready foods.

To reiterate, rely on restaurants and convenience food have their own benefits and drawbacks which cannot be overlooked. However, people have take some precautions for their health and body to keep healthy life.

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 eating restaurant and convenience food rather than home-cooked meals, placing the essay at the target level. A clear position is presented throughout the writing. However, some ideas are more fully developed than others, which is characteristic of this band level. For instance, the advantages are explained with a straightforward personal example regarding packaged meals, but the disadvantages remain somewhat broad, such as the general claim that "restaurants does not take care of the hygiene." To reach a higher band, the writer needs to extend and support all ideas more thoroughly with specific examples or explanations rather than relying on brief generalisations.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction and conclusion, and logical paragraph divisions are attempted. Each paragraph has a discernible focus, moving from advantages to disadvantages, and finally to home-cooked food. Nevertheless, cohesion within and between sentences is sometimes mechanical or faulty. For instance, transitions like "Nevertheless" are used slightly awkwardly to introduce the benefits of home-cooked food rather than a contrast against the previous paragraph, and referencing is occasionally unclear, such as "rely on restaurants and convenience food have their own benefits". To improve, the writer should employ a wider and more natural range of cohesive devices and ensure smoother progression between ideas.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The writer uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as "meritorious outcomes," "deleterious effects," and "precautions." However, there are noticeable inaccuracies in word choice and collocation, such as "uncanny repercussions" where "negative consequences" would be more natural, and "ready to eat food" or "instant foods" used repetitively. There are also occasional word-form errors, such as "rely on" instead of "relying on." These lexical slips do not impede communication, allowing the reader to follow the argument easily. To achieve a higher score, the student should refine word choices to ensure precise collocations and a more natural academic tone.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The essay demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, though the range of structures is somewhat limited. There are several grammatical errors in agreement, tenses, and sentence patterns, such as "many people are preferred to eat," "everyone are busy to their life," and "restaurants does not take care." Despite these errors, the meaning is generally clear and they rarely impede communication entirely. To move to the next band level, the writer must produce a greater variety of complex structures with improved accuracy, ensuring better control over verb forms, subject-verb agreement, and prepositions.

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

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