Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-07

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 6.5)

Nowadays, eating fast-food and take away food has become increasingly popular, many people now depend on them. There appear to be two main benefits and couple of drawbacks to this trend, which will be considered in further paragraphs.

Perhaps, the most salient advantage is, people can save more time on cooking food at home if they ordered from outside. These days people are working full-time and some of them are doing two jobs in a day so they hardly get time to cook at home so this packaged meals are more convinent for them to eat. For instance, office workers who gets home 8PM they just heat a packaged meal in minutes. Another equally significant aspect is restaurants are offering more variety of cuisines which people may not able to cook at home such as sushi, Thai curry and Italian. For example, plenty of local kitchens offer dishes that most of us have barely heard of.

Turning to the possible disadvantages, people who eat often outside food may suffer from health issues. Restaurant food is often high in salt, sugar, oil and preservatives, this may create a health problems such as diabetes, blood pressure and heart related disease. To cite an example, many youngsters are suffering from blood pressure and diabetes just because they are eating convenience food. Furthermore, restaurant food is much higher in cost. Easting out or ordering in is usually more expensive than cooking at home.

To conclude, it's apparent that saving time on cooking at home and the variety of food available in market could be thought of as significant merits; health issues and higher cost of food possibly be detrimental outcomes.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

You address both sides of the question and give a clear overall summary: saving time and accessing varied cuisines are presented as advantages, while health concerns and expense are disadvantages. The examples of an office worker heating a meal and unfamiliar restaurant dishes help make the benefits relevant. This meets the task well, but development is uneven: the variety point is supported mainly by a list, and the cost disadvantage is stated briefly without explaining its impact or giving an example. The health discussion is more developed, although the claim linking young people’s illnesses directly to convenience food is broad. To strengthen the response further, explain the consequences of each point and qualify general claims with more precise support.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.0

The response has a clear four-part structure, with an introduction, separate paragraphs for advantages and disadvantages, and a conclusion that restates the main points. Transitions such as “Turning to the possible disadvantages” and “To conclude” make the progression easy to follow. Within the advantages paragraph, the two benefits are also signposted with “Perhaps” and “Another equally significant aspect.” Some linking is less controlled: the opening sentence joins two complete ideas with a comma, and repeated use of “so” in the time-saving explanation makes the reasoning feel slightly mechanical. The conclusion is clear but largely repeats earlier points. More varied links between cause, example, and consequence would make the progression smoother.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use an adequate range for the topic, including phrases such as “packaged meals,” “variety of cuisines,” “preservatives,” and “health issues.” These choices communicate the main ideas, and “salient advantage” shows an attempt to use more formal vocabulary. However, some word choices and collocations are inaccurate or informal, including “take away food,” “outside food,” and “local kitchens”; “convinient” and “Easting” are also spelling errors. The phrase “higher cost of food” is understandable but imprecise. Aim for more natural topic-specific expressions and check spelling carefully. Greater precision in describing health effects and the financial disadvantage would help you express ideas more flexibly.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt both simple and complex sentence forms, including a relative clause in “dishes that most of us have barely heard of” and a conditional structure in “if they ordered from outside.” Meaning is generally clear, but some grammatical errors remain. For example, “people can save more time … if they ordered” shifts tense; “workers who gets” has subject–verb disagreement; and “this packaged meals” has incorrect number agreement. The sentence beginning “Restaurant food is often high in salt…” joins independent clauses with a comma, while “this may create a health problems” has an article–plural mismatch. Review agreement, articles, and sentence boundaries, and vary sentence structures while checking each clause for accurate verb forms.

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