Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-09-15
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 individuals argue that competition in professional, educational and everyday settings is a positive thing, whereas others believe that greater cooperation is preferable to competing against each other. This essay will discuss both views and explain why I believe that cooperation is generally more beneficial than competition.
There are several reasons why cooperate is more beneficial. To begine with, people who work together can share their skills, knowledges, and different ideas to each other. As a result they can solve their any kind of complex problem esaily.
In addition, cooperation can build strong relationship and trust. For example, a group of employee if get a difficult project they can shair their throughts and complete the project without any kind of errors. However, exteamly competition can make jelousy, stress and colflict, which can create a bad impact on company.
On the other hand, competition has a lot of advantages rather than disadvantages. Firstly, competition can teach a person how to work hard and also motivate them. For instance, students compete for higher grades, so they study harder. Secondly, competition can help a person to improve their skills, additionally in work place individuals learn new skills as a result they can be more productive. For example, employees compete for promotion, so they improve their professional skills.
In conclusion, although competiotion can inspire people to work harder and inhance their performances. In my opinion, cooperation is more beneficial than competition because it creates stronger bonding, build trust, and shair their knowledges on another.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the views on competition and cooperation, while also providing a clear personal opinion. The writer establishes a position in the introduction and maintains it through to the conclusion. Ideas are presented, such as the benefits of cooperation through sharing skills and ideas, and the motivational aspects of competition. However, some of these ideas lack full extension and suffer from over-generalisation and limited supporting detail. For example, the arguments regarding cooperation are somewhat repetitive in their phrasing. Nevertheless, the prompt is fully answered, positioning this performance firmly at Band 6.0.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear paragraph structure, including an introduction, body paragraphs addressing both sides, and a conclusion. Cohesive devices are used to signal transitions, such as 'To begine with', 'In addition', and 'On the other hand'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical. For instance, the transition 'although competiotion can inspire people... In my opinion, cooperation is more beneficial...' creates a fragmented sentence structure in the conclusion. Paragraphing is adequate, but the logical progression within paragraphs occasionally feels abrupt due to limited linguistic scaffolding, leading to a score of 6.0.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common lexical items such as 'productive', 'professional skills', and 'colflict' (conflict). However, there are noticeable spelling and word formation errors throughout the text, including 'cooperate' instead of cooperation, 'knowledges' (an uncountable noun treated as plural), 'esaily', 'exteamly', 'jelousy', 'colflict', 'inhance', and 'shair'. These errors reflect a lack of precision, though they do not completely impede communication. Because the lexical range is sufficient but marred by frequent word-choice and spelling slips, a score of 5.5 is appropriate.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional structures like 'people who work together can share...' and 'employees compete for promotion, so they improve their professional skills.' However, there are frequent grammatical errors and awkward phrasings, such as 'a group of employee if get a difficult project they can shair...' and 'shair their knowledges on another.' Punctuation and verb agreement errors are also present. These structural and grammatical inaccuracies occasionally cause difficulty for the reader, placing the grammar performance at a Band 5.5 level.
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