Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-09-17

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 contemporary society, Competition is become really common for everyone. While some people argue that competition at studies, work and for daily life activities can encourage them to get better grades and perform well. However others believe that cooperation is essential for best performance. I believe balance approach would be valuable in the future.

On the one hand, competition can motivate people to performe excellent in their fields. When individuals compete other collegues or students, they often set higher goals and work hard to achieve them. A case in point is, when a student compete his classmates, he may study regularly and improve his learning abilities. Likewase, a employee work harder to acheive his goals and improve his professional skills.

On the other hand, Cooperation also plays role well in life achievements. Through competition people may get jealous, insecure and destroy their relationships. It can become the cause of stress, disturbance and poor rapports. In cooperation, empolyees work in a team, share their ideas and get success together without competing others. Cooperation can build confidence, understandings and strong bond between individuals. For instance, when a student have a cooperation skills, he assests other weak pupils without becoming insecure and jealousy.

In conclusion, Competition could helpful to motivate for acheiving success and good grades, but it can also be a reason of anxiety, depression and poor relationships. Nevertheless, Cooperation should be prioritise more in a society because it builds mutual understanding and better environment.I believe that a healthy combination of two is preferable, with competition being kept positive and cooperation being encoraged whenever people have a common goal.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the view that competition is beneficial and the view that cooperation is preferable, while also providing a clear personal opinion. The writer establishes a position in the introduction and maintains it through to the conclusion, suggesting a balanced approach. However, the ideas are somewhat under-developed and lack extension. For instance, the examples provided, such as a student competing with classmates or an employee working harder, are rather simplistic and repetitive. Furthermore, there is a slight contradiction and confusion in the third body paragraph regarding cooperation and jealousy, as the text states 'when a student have a cooperation skills, he assests other weak pupils without becoming insecure and jealousy'. These minor gaps in idea extension and precision place this response firmly in Band 6.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear paragraph structure, utilizing an introduction, two body paragraphs representing opposing views, a synthesis paragraph, and a concluding thought. Cohesive devices are used to signal logical progression, such as 'On the one hand', 'On the other hand', and 'In conclusion'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical. For example, the sentence structure in the opening paragraph contains grammatical fragments ('While some people argue that... However others believe that...'), which disrupts the flow between sentences. Additionally, paragraph transitions lack subtle nuance, relying on basic signposting. While the logical organization is generally clear, these minor mechanical issues in cohesion restrict the score to a Band 6.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student attempts a range of vocabulary suitable for the task, including terms like 'contemporary society', 'professional skills', 'mutual understanding', and 'insecure'. However, there are frequent word choice and collocation errors throughout the text. Examples include 'Competition is become really common' (tense and collocation error), 'at studies' instead of 'in their studies', 'performe excellent' instead of 'perform excellently', 'a employee' instead of 'an employee', 'plays role well' instead of 'plays a vital role', and 'jealousy' used as an adjective instead of the noun 'jealous'. There are also spelling errors such as 'performe', 'Likewase', 'acheive', 'assests' (for assists), and 'acheiving'. These lexical errors and inaccuracies reflect a Band 5 performance.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating an attempt at varied structures through conditional and subordinate clauses (e.g., 'When individuals compete other collegues or students, they often set higher goals...'). However, grammatical accuracy is weak, with frequent errors that occasionally cause difficulty for the reader. Notable errors include subject-verb agreement issues and tense errors ('Competition is become', 'when a student compete', 'when a student have a cooperation skills'), missing articles ('a employee', 'a balance approach'), and prepositional errors ('competition at studies'). Punctuation is also problematic, particularly the sentence fragment starting with 'However others believe...' following a dependent clause. Because the frequency of errors is high across both simple and complex structures, a Band 5 is appropriate.

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