Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-09-18

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)

There is an ongoing debate wether some people arugue that competition at work , at school and in daily routine is a beneficial thing or some says we should try to cooperate more rather than competing against each other. Having competition in your life is a good thing it makes you keep going although it can have some detrimental effects on human both mentally and physically but I strongly believe that you can grow and learn more rapidly in the cooperative environment.

Some people says that competition is necessary they are somehow right from their point of view because a competition is just like having someone that keeps you pushing towards your goal. Having a competition have both merits and demerits, it depends that how a person conceive that competition. For instance at school there is a competition among students that who will get more grades if the students keep working hard in a striaghtway it will be a healthy thing but if they start hiding things and not helping the peers to achieve it will have negative effect. Same is the case in daily life tasks.

While on the other hand a significant number of population believe that cooperating is the key and I also stand with that. To illustrate this you are new in an office and you have colleagues who are facilitating you and assiting you in all the matters.In this way there is a growth on both sides you will learn from them and in return they will also learn something from you.

In conclusion, I must say that competition is a righteous thing if it is a healthy kind of competition. But from my standpoint a person learn and ace more things in cooperative and friendly circumstances.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt by discussing both competition and cooperation and providing a clear personal opinion. The writer establishes a stance in the introduction and maintains it throughout the essay, concluding that cooperation is preferable. However, the development of ideas lacks depth in places. For instance, the discussion on school competition mentions students hiding things from peers, but this point is not fully extended with further consequences or specific examples. Similarly, the argument regarding office collaboration is slightly brief. To reach higher bands, the student needs to fully develop each body paragraph with richer, more detailed explanations and examples. Nonetheless, the task is adequately addressed, earning a Band 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, two body paragraphs representing both views, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas. However, cohesion within sentences and paragraphs is at times mechanical or faulty. Phrases like 'Some people says that competition is necessary' and 'While on the other hand' show awkward transitions. Referencing is also occasionally unclear, such as 'achieve it' in the second paragraph where the antecedent is vague. Additionally, punctuation errors (like missing commas and spaces around punctuation) detract from the overall flow. These issues place the response firmly at Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for the task, attempting some less common phrases such as 'detrimental effects', 'conceive that competition', and 'facilitating'. However, there are notable spelling and word-choice errors, including 'wether' instead of 'whether', 'arugue' instead of 'argue', and 'striaghtway' instead of 'straight way'. Collocations are occasionally unnatural, such as 'righteous thing' to describe healthy competition. The vocabulary is minimally sufficient to convey the message, but inaccuracies in spelling and lexical choices prevent the writer from achieving a higher band. This performance aligns with Band 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as conditional forms ('if the students keep working hard...') and relative clauses. However, there is a high frequency of grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement issues ('some people says', 'a person learn and ace'), run-on sentences, and missing articles ('in cooperative environment'). Punctuation is also weak, with spacing errors around commas and missing terminal punctuation in places. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they occur frequently throughout the text, restricting the score to a Band 5.0.

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

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