Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-11-05

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people think that competition at work, at school and in daily life is a good thing. Others believe that we should try to cooperate more, rather than competing against each other.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Some argue that it is a beneficial to have competition at work, at school and in daily life. However, other argue that working together to achieve goal is important. This essay will discuss both views prior to providing an opinion.

In daily life, people face competition everywhere. Some of the people take advantage of the competition, while other suffers the consequences. For instance, In nowadays, there are a lot of supermarkets and they compete with each others to provide the lower prices for customers. Doing so, some of the businesses suffer the lost of customers and others make a profit out of it. During the competition, customers are the ones who benefit with lower prices. Therefore, competition plays a major role of building a customer base for a business. Furthermore, this will be a reason for closure of business as well as development.

Working together is important is some cases specific cases. However, if we consider the same example above and imagine all the supermarkets have the same price. Therefore, the competitive prices and benefits will be lost for the customers. There are times cooparation is important than competition. Such as in an accident, people need to work together to save many life as possible.

Even though there are benefits of working together to reach a goal, competition is more important in public settings. It is not only benefial financially, it improve self-steam, confidance in specific settings such as in exams.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that competition provide more benefits to society than cooperation because of the reasons mentioned above.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both sides of the question and state a clear preference for competition, especially in the final two paragraphs. The supermarket example is relevant and explains how competition can lower prices for customers. However, the discussion is uneven: cooperation receives only brief treatment, and the accident example is asserted rather than explained. The claim that competition improves self-esteem and confidence is also not supported with an example or reasoning. The opening says the essay will discuss both views, but the response does not develop the benefits of cooperation enough to fully answer that part of the task. To strengthen the response, explain when cooperation produces better outcomes and support your opinion with specific, developed examples.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure, with an introduction, separate paragraphs for competition and cooperation, and a conclusion that restates your position. This helps the reader follow the broad direction of the argument. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes unclear, and some linking is mechanical or inaccurate. For example, “Therefore” introduces the same-price supermarket scenario as though it were a conclusion, while “Such as in an accident” is a fragment rather than a smoothly connected example. The final paragraph introduces self-esteem and confidence without linking these claims clearly to the earlier discussion. Use clearer topic sentences and connect each example explicitly to the point it supports; also ensure each paragraph develops one main idea in a logical sequence.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “competition,” “cooperation,” “customers,” “profit,” and “benefits,” so the main ideas are generally understandable. There are also attempts at more specific expressions, such as “customer base” and “public settings.” However, the range is limited and several word-choice, collocation, and spelling errors make the writing less precise: “suffers the consequences,” “make a profit out of it,” and “benefial” are examples. Some phrases are also unnatural, including “building a customer base for a business” in this context. Aim to use accurate topic-related collocations and check spelling carefully. More precise vocabulary for outcomes, such as market competition and shared responsibility, would help you express the contrast more clearly.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt a mixture of simple sentences and longer structures, including a conditional example beginning “if we consider the same example above.” However, control is inconsistent, and errors occur in basic sentence patterns as well as in more complex attempts. Examples include “Some argue that it is a beneficial,” “other argue,” “Working together is important is some cases,” and “competition provide more benefits.” The sentence beginning “Such as in an accident” is incomplete, and the supermarket sentence starting “Doing so” is awkwardly attached to the preceding idea. These errors sometimes make relationships between ideas difficult to follow. Practise subject–verb agreement, articles, complete sentence construction, and accurate clause linking, then proofread each sentence for a clear subject and verb.

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