Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-19

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 5.0)

In recent years, restaurants and convenience food has become increasingly common. Although this trend offers several benefits, it also has certain drawbacks. People what preferring are constantly changing what it was and making distance from home cooked food .

One major advantage of convenience food is that its convenient and easy to find . This is because small city or surroundings all fill with restaurants and shop . As a result, without any hardworking or cooking food can can be found easily . For example, students or employers dont have to rely on tiffin or food will getting spoiled . Furthermore , its safe and hygienic maintained. which can also contribute to daily needs.

Despite these benefits, there are some disadvantages to consider. The most significant drawback is its not healthy. This can be particularly problematic because health benefit and cautions . For instance, instant noodles or instant foods are high salt, different chemical contained . Another concern is street food can be unhealthy , which may lead to food poison.

In conclusion, both has both advantages and disadvantages. While it can provide flexibility and can be sometimes cheap to eat, it may also cause health issue, food related issues and sometimes costly .

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.5

You address both sides of the question: convenience and availability are presented as benefits, while poor nutrition and food poisoning are identified as drawbacks. The examples of students and instant noodles are relevant, but the explanations are brief or unclear; for instance, the point about food being “safe and hygienic” is not explained and sits uneasily beside the later concern about unhealthy street food. The conclusion repeats the two-sided position but does not draw the discussion together in much detail. The response is also 46 words below the required minimum, which limits the space available to develop reasons and examples. Extend each main point with a clear explanation and a specific example.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a recognisable overall structure: an introduction, a paragraph on advantages, a paragraph on disadvantages, and a conclusion. This makes the main direction easy to follow, and transitions such as “Furthermore,” “Despite these benefits,” and “In conclusion” help signal the stages of the argument. However, some links between ideas are unclear or mechanical. For example, “This can be particularly problematic because health benefit and cautions” does not clearly connect the health claim to its explanation, and the sentence beginning “which can also contribute” has an unclear reference. Build each paragraph around one clear point, then connect the explanation and example explicitly; this would make cohesion more reliable.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the basic discussion, including “convenience food,” “hygienic,” “instant noodles,” and “food poison.” However, the range is limited and several word choices or collocations are inaccurate, sometimes making meaning less clear. For example, “without any hardworking” does not naturally express the lack of effort, “food poison” should be expressed as “food poisoning,” and “health benefit and cautions” is difficult to interpret. Repetition of general terms such as “food,” “issues,” and “convenient” also limits precision. Aim to learn useful collocations for this topic and choose specific terms for nutritional risks, cost, and time-saving.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including a contrastive opening with “Although” and a cause-and-effect example introduced by “because.” However, grammatical errors are frequent and sometimes make sentences difficult to understand. Examples include “restaurants and convenience food has” (subject–verb agreement), “People what preferring” (incorrect clause structure), and “its convenient” (missing apostrophe and incorrect form). There are also incomplete or poorly connected sentences, such as “which can also contribute to daily needs,” and errors in articles and plurals. Practise building complete subject–verb sentences first, then check agreement, verb forms, articles, and punctuation before adding subordinate clauses.

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