Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-15

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people believe that children learn better when they are placed in classes with children of similar academic abilities. Others believe that children learn better when they are in classes with children representing a diverse range of academic abilities.

Discuss both these views and give your opinion

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

Student answer (Band 4.5)

Nowadays, a large number of businesses emphasize that their products are new or improved in their advertisements. This is because companies want to attract customers and increase their sales. I believe this is a negative development. This essay will discuss the reasons and negative effects in the following paragraphs.

To begin with, there are various reasons why companies emphasize on new products. Firstly, mostly customers are usually interested in new things because they want to try new things and want to improve their lifestyle. For instance, people may give more preference to buy a new smartphone with a better camera and longer battery life. Moreover, advertising new products helps companies to attract the attention and want to compete with other businesses. When a paroduct has different new features, customers may choose to buy it from their company as compared to other competetiors. As a result, with the help of this, companies can increase their sales and profits.

On the other hand, there are many negative effects of this development. The first and the foremost is that customers may spend money on unusual products which they do not need. This can create financial pressure on people especially who have limited income. For example, people may replace their phones annually, even though their old phones are still working properly. In addition to this, frequent advertisements can encourage people to focus too much on material rather than their actual needs. Another problem is that some companies exaggrate the benefits of their products. So, customers may feel disappointed when the product does not meet their expectations.

To conclude, most of the companies advertise their products as new to attract more customers and increase their sales. Acoording to me, it is a negative development because it encourages unnecessary purchases and also mislead consumers.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 2.0

The response suffers from a significant task achievement issue due to addressing the wrong prompt. The student has written an essay about why companies advertise new products and whether this is a positive or negative development, whereas the official task instructions asked for a discussion on children learning in classes with similar academic abilities versus diverse academic abilities and an opinion on the matter. Consequently, the response is entirely off-topic for the assigned question. Although the essay has a clear position regarding the prompt the student mistakenly answered, the core requirement of addressing the actual input prompt has not been met. In accordance with the band descriptors, an off-topic response cannot achieve a passing score for task response. Therefore, a band score of 2.0 is awarded.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

Despite the severe off-topic issue regarding the task content, the organizational structure of the essay demonstrates a fair degree of control. The text is divided into logical paragraphs with an introduction, two body paragraphs exploring different aspects, and a conclusion. Transitional phrases such as 'To begin with', 'On the other hand', and 'To conclude' are employed to guide the reader through the structure. However, referencing is occasionally repetitive, and some cohesive ties are rather mechanical. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas, such as the reasons for advertising versus the negative effects. Because the structural framework and logical progression are reasonably clear despite the major content misalignment, the text aligns best with the Band 5 descriptors for coherence and cohesion.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary for conveying basic ideas, utilizing words such as 'advertisements', 'competitors', 'financial pressure', and 'expectations'. However, there are notable lexical errors and spelling mistakes throughout the text, including 'paroduct' instead of product, 'competetiors' instead of competitors, and 'exaggrate' instead of exaggerate. Additionally, the phrase 'emphasize on' is grammatically imprecise. While the student attempts some less common vocabulary, the noticeable errors and restricted range mean the vocabulary is minimally adequate for basic communication. This performance fits comfortably within the Band 5 descriptors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response contains a mix of simple and moderately complex sentence structures, such as relative clauses ('products which they do not need') and conditional ideas. However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are several recurring errors, such as 'mostly customers' instead of most customers, 'give more preference to buy' rather than give preference to buying, and punctuation or preposition errors like 'Acoording to me' instead of In my opinion. While these errors do not completely obscure the intended meaning, they occur with sufficient frequency to cause occasional difficulty for the reader, placing the grammar performance at Band 5.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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