Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-14

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)

People's eating habits has changed significantly.Therefore, some experts believe that individuals are heavily rely on resturants and pre-cooked foods as compare to making food at home. This essay will discuss merits and demeris of consuming resturant food and forzen or packed meals.

One major advantage of eating outside is that it save considerable amount of time.To explain, packaged food is easily avaliable at shops and stores which allow public to eat without taking burden of cooking at home. It could be stressful for some as cooking at home requires proper equipments and ingerdients. For examle, a worker can save time by purchasing meal from supermarket without wasting hours to cook at home. Another advantage worth mentioning is that the avaliability of variety of foods. Resturants offer large number of dishes to their customers which are difficult to cook at home. Moreover, most of the ingredients are secretly added by the resturants. For this reson, people prefer to visit eating places instead of making food at home.

Despite having several advantages, street and stored food have some disadvantages. Firstly, the quality of the food can be cheap. This is mainly because many resturants cook meals once for large number of customers which can be served for an hours. For this reason, the freshness of the street food may be compromised whereas home-made food usually served fresh. Secondly, home made food can be cooked according to the requirements of the people while resturant food could be spicey and sour without personal choice of spices.

To conclude, although resturant and stored meals are quick and time saving process, it provides low quality

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both advantages and disadvantages, and the main benefits—saving time and having more food choices—are relevant. The examples of a worker buying a supermarket meal and restaurants offering dishes that are difficult to prepare at home help illustrate these points. However, several ideas are asserted rather than explained: for instance, the claim that restaurants add ingredients “secretly” is unclear and does not show why this is an advantage. The disadvantages are also less fully developed, and the conclusion ends abruptly without summarising the drawbacks or giving a clear overall assessment. To strengthen the response, explain the effects of each point more precisely and complete the conclusion so both sides of the question are addressed clearly.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a clear overall arrangement: an introduction, a paragraph on advantages, one on disadvantages, and a conclusion. Sequencing words such as “Firstly,” “Secondly,” “Moreover,” and “To conclude” make the direction of the discussion easy to follow. However, some links feel mechanical, and the relationship between ideas is not always clear. For example, “Moreover, most of the ingredients are secretly added” does not clearly connect to the point about variety. The final sentence also stops before the conclusion is complete, weakening the overall progression. Use linking phrases to show cause and effect more precisely, and ensure each paragraph develops one central point before moving to the next.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “packaged food,” “freshness,” “requirements,” and “ingredients.” However, the range is limited and several spelling and word-choice errors are noticeable, such as “resturants,” “forzen,” “avaliable,” and “demeris.” Some expressions are also imprecise or unnatural: “the quality of the food can be cheap” does not clearly describe the concern, and “secretly added” is an unsuitable way to explain restaurant ingredients. These choices can make parts of the argument harder to interpret. Build a more accurate range of collocations for food quality, convenience, and preparation, and proofread spelling carefully.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentences, including explanations introduced by “To explain” and “This is mainly because.” However, errors in agreement, verb forms, articles, and sentence construction occur frequently and sometimes make the meaning less clear. For example, “People's eating habits has changed” should use a plural verb, while “individuals are heavily rely” combines incompatible verb forms. In “it save considerable amount of time,” the verb and article need correction. The final sentence, “although … it provides low quality,” is incomplete in meaning and does not clearly connect its clauses. Practise checking subject–verb agreement, verb patterns, and complete sentence structure, while retaining your attempts at complex sentences.

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