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)

Some people believe competition is beneficial as various aspects of life

while others argue that there should be much more cooperation when it comes to interaction with each other. This essay will discuss both perspectives along with my opinion.

In this paragraph, advantages of having a competitive spirit is explained. To begin with, competing with colleges and fellow student is beneficial not it boost productivity but also create greater chance of mutual growth. For instance, student working on different parts of cars ultimately help in making car more efficient. Furthermore, people competing head to head boost moral and motivation in society. For example, when race athletes run for finish line it forces them to perform at peak performance other if there is no competitor then they can upgrade their performance level.

Conversely, there can be various drawbacks of competition. One of the reason for this is extra burden on the mind of people. when they are already suffering from various responsibilities. Working cooperatively, help people navigate through different situation. Moreover, there cooperative behaviour can help individual to dodge tricky situation such as anger at woork can be avoided by being polite. Therefore, living cooperatively can help people making better connection.

To recapsulate, competion brings motivation and productivity in working spaces as well as in student life whereas role of cooperation cannot be ignoredbecause it helps people drift throgh hard times. In my opinion, competition is better option for overall well being and growth.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses both parts of the prompt by discussing competition and cooperation before providing a personal opinion in the conclusion. A clear position is maintained throughout the essay. However, the ideas are somewhat limited and under-developed, with examples that lack full clarity and depth, such as the automotive example which is somewhat confusingly articulated. Furthermore, the response incurs a penalty because the length requirement is NOT met, as it falls short of the 250-word minimum at 243 words. Consequently, these factors align the task achievement with Band 5.5, reflecting a partially addressed task with limited idea development and a minor word count penalty.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay has a coherent overall arrangement and follows a discernible logical structure with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is utilised, although the opening sentences of the body paragraphs contain meta-language rather than content-driven topic introductions. Cohesive devices are employed, but some are faulty, mechanical, or used awkwardly, such as 'Conversely,' and 'To recapsulate,' (which contains a spelling slip). Referencing and logical progression within sentences occasionally break down, leading to a somewhat disjointed reading experience. These characteristics fit the Band 6.0 descriptor, where the overall arrangement is coherent, but cohesion is sometimes faulty or mechanical.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'beneficial,' 'productivity,' 'mutual growth,' and 'cooperatively.' However, there are notable word choice, spelling, and collocation errors throughout the response, including 'colleges' instead of 'colleagues,' 'moral' instead of 'morale,' 'woork,' and 'drift throgh.' Additionally, there is inappropriate repetition of words like 'competing' and 'competition.' These errors do not seriously impede communication, but they restrict the lexical score. Therefore, a Band 5.5 is appropriate, reflecting a minimally adequate range with noticeable inaccuracies.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some variety with conditional or relative-style structures, such as 'when race athletes run for finish line it forces them to perform at peak performance other if there is no competitor...' However, control over grammar and punctuation is inconsistent. There are several noticeable errors, including run-on sentences, missing articles ('making car more efficient', 'extra burden'), and subject-verb agreement issues ('there cooperative behaviour can help'). While these errors rarely completely obscure the meaning, they are frequent enough to prevent the essay from reaching a higher band. This performance corresponds to a Band 5.5, sitting between bands due to frequent errors in complex structures.

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

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