Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-11-04

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)

Food preferences has become a most debated topic. More and more people are inclined towards food from outside instead of cooking meal at home. Although there are several benefits of this trend, including convenience and easy option, the drawbacks such as adverse health effects and financial burden of this approach cannot be ingnored. This essay will discuss both advantages and disadvantages of this approch in following paragraphs.

One of the most prominent advantages of this approach is that frozen and ready made foods are convenient for most working people. This is because they do not have enough time after office to prepare food at home. As a result, people order their meal from the resurants or they consume raedily packed food. For example, in many countries where working employees who work for long hours often lack time and get tired, they often bring food from outside or they store food in their freezers to have their dinner quickly. Therefore, they save their engergy and time for other work instead for spending hours in cooking.

However, there are many disadvantages behind this trend as pre-cooked food have numerous preservatives and artificial flavours that can harm human body in a long run. If people cook food at home they can contol what ingrediant they are adding to their food, this way, they can count on their calories and sugar, which contributes to maintaining their health. For example, many research claim that country such as Japan where more people cook their meal at home, they have less health issues such as cancer and chronic heart diseases comapre with the countries where people consume packaged food. Therefore, many people still prefer cooking at home, even though they have busy schedule.

In conclusion, although ready made meals are beneficial for working population in the terms of their easy availability and conevniency, there disadvantages such as health issues can be considered. Overall, a balance between both types of food will be better for maintaining better lifestyle.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses both sides of the question and gives a clear overall view: convenience is presented as the main advantage, while health risks are the principal disadvantage. The examples about long working hours and controlling ingredients at home are relevant and help explain these points. However, the discussion is not equally developed: the advantage is mainly about saving time, while the disadvantage focuses on preservatives and health, with little consideration of other possible drawbacks such as cost or limited nutritional choice. The claim about Japan and lower rates of illness is broad and not clearly supported. To strengthen the response, explain the effects in more detail and use a specific, credible example rather than a general comparison between countries.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.0

The essay has a clear overall structure, with an introduction, separate paragraphs for the advantage and disadvantage, and a conclusion. The progression is easy to follow, and linking expressions such as “As a result,” “However,” and “Therefore” generally show how ideas relate. Each main paragraph also develops a central point rather than shifting between unrelated topics. At times, though, the links feel formulaic, and some sentences repeat the same idea—for example, the advantage paragraph refers several times to workers lacking time and choosing food from outside. The conclusion also introduces a “balance” without explaining what that balance would involve. More varied transitions and clearer links between examples and their claims would make the progression more flexible.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The response uses enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate its main ideas, including “convenient,” “preservatives,” “artificial flavours,” and “financial burden.” It also attempts some less common expressions, such as “adverse health effects,” although several choices are inaccurate or awkward. Examples include “Food preferences has become a most debated topic,” “easy option,” and “count on their calories,” which do not express the intended meaning naturally. Spelling errors such as “ingnored,” “resurants,” and “conevniency” are noticeable, and forms such as “ready made” are not consistently presented. Improve accuracy by learning common collocations for food, health, and cost, and proofread spelling and word forms before submitting.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

There is a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, including clauses introduced by “Although,” “because,” and “if,” so the response shows some range. Most meaning remains understandable, but some grammatical errors recur. For example, “Food preferences has become” has a subject–verb agreement problem, while “pre-cooked food have” also needs agreement. In “If people cook food at home they can contol what ingrediant they are adding,” punctuation after the introductory clause would improve clarity, and the tense choice in “are adding” is less suitable for a general statement. The conclusion’s “there disadvantages” also needs a possessive form. Review agreement, articles, and clause punctuation, then check each sentence for a consistent tense.

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