Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-22

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people feel that the government should pay the costs of running universities so that a university education will be free for anyone who wants it.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

Give reasons for your answer, and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Many people feels that university education should be free for anyone who wants to study and the government should pay for the costs of running universities. Therefore, this essay will discuss the agreements on government paying the costs for university education.

Firstly, government paying the costs of university education will reduce stress, anxiety and depression amoungst students because university education is very expensive and not everyone is able to afford and making education free would help students who really wants to gain knoweldge and do better in life. For example, going to unversity nowadays requires one to work and study at the same time, and students are not able to fully give thier best at school, therefore they struggle and fail units which are already expensive and now they have to pay again and do the same unit. Students are not able to fully balance their school and work, therefore having free education would motivate students to focus more on school work rather than work.

Also, free education would make their parents life easier as well, since economy is going inflation so that price of goods and services are rising and soon there will higher interest rates, parents are paying for mortages and some parents are not able to afford paying for schools fees. Therefore, having free education would help the parents to afford sending children to school. For example, due to rising costs of everything, people have started to rely on food banks as they cannot afford a living, so paying for fees is not even an option because of not being able to afford.

I think that government should provide free education because life is very expensive and the future is the children. AI has taken over so many things and the kids have no idea the things happening. The kids needs to be educated so that there is a bright future for the country and since AI exists so the kids needs to be smarter than the software to instruct. For example, everywhere in the news nowadays have rising costs and people cannot afford and I have heard that people commit suicide because they cannot handle stress. Free education should be the way to succeed in life.

To conclude, free education should be implemented by government for those who wants it and the costs of running univeristies should be covered. I agree with the statement because this will help students to reduce stress, anxiety and depression. It will help the parents to afford sending kids to universities. Also, the kids are the future of the country and life has become very expensive, so free education would help kids to build a bright future.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

Your position is clear: you agree that government should fund university education, and you give relevant reasons concerning student pressure, family finances and the country’s future. The examples about students combining work and study and families relying on food banks help connect these points to real circumstances. However, the reasons are not developed equally. The discussion of stress and parents’ costs is more specific, while the point about AI and children needing to be “smarter than the software” is broad and its link to publicly funded universities is not fully explained. The reference to suicide is also introduced without showing how it supports the funding argument. Explain the likely benefits and address how government funding could make access fairer to reach a more complete response.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a recognisable structure, with an introduction, separate body paragraphs and a conclusion, and the main ideas generally progress from students to parents and then the country’s future. Linking expressions such as “Firstly,” “Also,” “For example” and “To conclude” make the organisation easy to follow. At times, however, cohesion feels mechanical, and “therefore” is repeated several times in the first body paragraph. Some connections between ideas are also unclear: the discussion of inflation, interest rates and parents’ ability to pay moves quickly, while the AI point is not smoothly tied to the case for free university education. Use fewer repeated connectors and make the relationship between each example and its main claim explicit.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate your main points, including “university education,” “rising costs,” “food banks,” “stress” and “future.” However, the range is limited and several phrases are imprecise or unnatural, such as “the agreements on government paying,” “going inflation” and “paying for fees.” Spelling errors, including “amoungst,” “knoweldge,” “unversity” and “mortages,” are noticeable and reduce the accuracy of the writing. Some wording is also repetitive, particularly references to costs and affordability. Build a more precise vocabulary for discussing public funding and access, and proofread spelling and collocations so your ideas sound clearer and more natural.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and longer sentences, and the overall meaning is usually understandable. Some complex sentences connect reasons and examples, but control is uneven. Subject–verb agreement errors include “Many people feels,” “the kids needs” and “those who wants”; there are also problems with articles and sentence construction, as in “there will higher interest rates.” The sentence beginning “For example, due to rising costs of everything” is not smoothly connected to a complete main clause, and several long sentences join multiple ideas with commas or “therefore.” These errors sometimes make relationships harder to follow. Practise accurate agreement and article use, and divide long sentences into clearer units while retaining a mix of sentence forms.

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