Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-09-25

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 believe having a competitive mind at workplace, at educational institutions, and in day-to-day life is a better thing while others condent that we should be more cooperative than competing to each other. even though competition in daily life is beneficial i believe cooperation is the key to success.

Being competitive at various place leads to negative impact. If someone couldn't achieve something and that is achieved by someone else who works or study with them, they will have a personal grudge with the achieved person. This will leads to anger and jealous towards them. For instance, if a student secured highest marks in exams and become topper of the class and the other student who secured second or third position in the class will have a kind of jealous towards them.

Being a cooperative one is more better than being a challenging person. someone with cooperative mind will always have a good friend circle. Everyone else will love them being supportive to each other. A cooperative minded individual will always have a good and kind heart as it will leads to less anger and innocent character. For example, people who works in Multi-National Companies will have weekly as well as monthly target which will leads to higher position promotions and it can be gained with a cooperative co-workers and a team.

Even though, some argue competition in professional, educational as well as in daily life is a good thing, I strongly believe that we all should be more cooperative than competitive in our daily life.

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 the writer provides a clear personal opinion in the introduction and conclusion. However, the ideas are relatively basic and lack full extension or deep exploration. For instance, the discussion on negative impacts of competition relies on a somewhat simplistic example of school marks leading to jealousy, and the argument for cooperation mentions MNC targets but fails to fully explain how cooperation directly achieves those targets. While the task is adequately addressed, the development of ideas remains at a Band 6 level due to this under-development and lack of broader supporting arguments.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay displays a generally coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt at paragraphing, separating the introduction, the anti-competition body paragraph, the pro-cooperation body paragraph, and the conclusion. However, cohesion is often faulty and mechanical. The writer relies heavily on basic transitional phrases like 'For instance' and 'Even though', and some referencing is unclear, such as 'the achieved person' and 'loved them being supportive'. Paragraphing is also slightly irregular, with some body paragraphs lacking clear topic sentences that seamlessly guide the reader. Progression is present, but overall control of cohesive devices places this response securely at Band 5.5, rounded to 6.0 for overall logical flow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task but exhibits noticeable limitations and inaccuracies. The student attempts some less common phrases like 'competitive mind' and 'Multi-National Companies', but there are frequent word-choice and collocation errors, such as 'condent' (contend), 'competing to each other' (competing with each other), 'achieved person' (successful person), and 'innocent character'. Spelling errors such as 'jealous' used as a noun instead of 'jealousy' also occur. These errors do not completely impede communication, allowing the reader to follow the argument, but the range and accuracy remain restricted, aligning with the Band 5 descriptors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing subordinating conjunctions such as 'even though' and conditional structures like 'If someone couldn't achieve something...'. However, grammatical accuracy is weak, with frequent errors that cause noticeable difficulty for the reader. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues ('This will leads', 'target which will leads', 'it leads to less anger'), missing articles ('at workplace', 'highest marks'), and awkward prepositions ('at various place', 'competing to each other'). While complex structures are attempted, they are often faulty, and the high frequency of basic errors prevents the score from reaching Band 6.

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

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