Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-09-14

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)

In this contemporary era, most of the youngsters are trying their best in every field of career while competing others. Some people believe that competition at work, at school and in daily life is a good thing. Another group of people believe that it is more important to cooperate instead of competing against each other. In my opinion, cooperation can outweigh the competion because an individual can able develop better understanding with interaction and sharing thoughts.

Firstly, there are wide range of significants of cooperation. In day-to-day life, people are more focusing on excelling alone to get more attention from others, while other prefer to stay in an environment where they can acquire additional knowledge and skills. In schools, students usually share their idieas with their friends and help them in all difficult problems, such as difficulty in calculations and other concepts related issues. It also help them to improve their weak areas.

However, some people in schools and workplaces are more likely to resolve issues by themselves. This approach is also benficial as it teaches them varieties of skill including decision making, problem solving and self analytics. Competing with someone makes you motivated and constistent in your work. For example, if your has got better result than yours, this would encourage you to do more hardwork with dedication.

In conclusion, although it is true that competion helps in maintaining consistency and develops a sense of improvement, I believe that cooperation would be more

beneficial as it vanishes the differeces in intelligence and plays a crucial role throughout an individual's life.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the views that competition is good and that cooperation is better, while also clearly stating the writer's own opinion in the introduction and conclusion. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited and lacks deep extension. For example, the arguments regarding cooperation in schools mention sharing ideas and helping with calculations, but these points remain fairly basic. The discussion on competition briefly mentions decision-making and motivation, but the supporting examples are slightly underdeveloped and general. This places the response comfortably at Band 6, as it addresses all parts of the prompt with relevant ideas, though some areas require further elaboration to reach a higher band.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay has a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different viewpoints and the writer's opinion. However, cohesion at the sentence level is sometimes faulty or mechanical. For instance, transitional phrases like 'Firstly' and 'However' are used, but referencing and linking within paragraphs can feel disjointed, such as in the second sentence of the second paragraph: 'In day-to-day life, people are more focusing on excelling alone to get more attention from others, while other prefer to stay...'. Cohesive devices are occasionally inaccurate or repetitive. Progression is generally discernible, but the logical flow between sentences could be smoother to achieve a higher score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common words and phrases such as 'contemporary era', 'outweigh', 'acquire additional knowledge', and 'vanishes the differences'. However, there are noticeable word-choice and collocation errors throughout the text, such as 'competing others' instead of 'competing with others', 'an individual can able develop' instead of 'an individual is able to develop', 'wide range of significants' instead of 'significance', and 'idieas' (spelling error). Additionally, phrasing like 'self analytics' is unnatural. These errors do not impede communication, but they restrict the lexical score to Band 6 due to frequent inaccuracies in less common lexical items.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting structures such as conditional and concessive clauses (e.g., 'although it is true that competition helps...'). However, there are frequent grammatical errors and awkward phrasing, such as 'most of the youngsters are trying... while competing others', 'cooperation can outweigh the competion because an individual can able develop', 'it also help them', and 'if your has got better result than yours'. Punctuation and verb agreement issues recur across the paragraphs. While these errors rarely impede overall communication, they prevent the control of grammar from reaching Band 6 consistently across a wide range of error-free sentences, bordering between Band 5.5 and 6.0; awarded Band 6.0 for a decent mix of sentence types.

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

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