Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-09-28

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 6.5)

In this contemporary world, both competition and cooperation shape how individuals succeed in education, work and personal life. While competition often drives ambition and progress, cooperation ensures harmony and collective achievements. In my opinion, a balance between them is most effective. This essay tends to discuss both sides along with credible examples and my opinion.

To begin with, competition always act as a powerful motivator. To elaborate it clearly, in schools, students often strive to outperform their peers that encourages them to study harder and achieve top grades, by this children can secure their future with good academic credits and skills. An optimal example for this can be the scholarship programs that reward top performers and push learners to reach their full potential. Similarly, in workplaces, competition among employees can lead to innovation and increased productivity, this will result in to not only increased production but also the high profitability of the organization. Hence, competition can promote overall performance as well as great future for the employees and the workplace.

On the other hand, cooperation fosters teamwork and mutual support. To elucidate, in professional environments, colloborative teams often generate creative solutions for tought problems by pooling different kind of skill perspectives. Because of this, fuctional cooperation can resolve complex problems and deliver great results. For instance, multi-national companies rely on cross-functional cooperation between the team members to create more innovative products and find global projects to achieve. In education, group assignments teach students how to communicate within a group and polish their problem-solving skills, preparing them for the real world challenges. Thus, if we nurture cooperative mentality among the students and workers, it will resulted in maximum productivity and more innovative ideas for decision-making.

To recapitulate, in my opinion, both competition and cooperation are indispensable in modern society. Competition sparks ambition and progress, while cooperation ensures shared achievements and sustainable results. When balances them wisely, they complement each other, leads to new ideas while maintaining unity and respect.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response successfully addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the views that competition is good and that cooperation should be preferred, while also clearly stating the writer's own opinion in the introduction and conclusion. Ideas are extended and supported with relevant examples, such as scholarship programs and cross-functional teams in multi-national companies. The position is maintained throughout the essay. However, some arguments, particularly regarding how cooperation directly impacts decision-making, could be slightly more deeply developed. Overall, the task is well handled, fulfilling all requirements for this criterion effectively and earning a solid band score.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The essay displays a clear logical organisation and progression throughout. Each paragraph has a clear central topic, starting with an introduction, followed by well-defined body paragraphs addressing competition and cooperation respectively, and ending with a concise conclusion. Cohesive devices such as 'To begin with', 'On the other hand', and 'To recapitulate' are used to guide the reader through the text, although some transitional phrases feel a bit formulaic. Paragraphing is used sufficiently and appropriately. Referencing is generally clear, though minor mechanical slip-ups in cohesion occur towards the end.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

The student demonstrates a sufficient range of vocabulary with some flexibility and precision, using terms like 'contemporary world', 'outperform', 'collaboration', and 'sustainable results'. There are attempts to use less common items with general awareness of style and collocation, though minor slips occur, such as 'colloborative' (a spelling error), 'tought' instead of 'tough', and awkward phrasing like 'fuctional cooperation' and 'When balances them wisely'. Despite these occasional inaccuracies in word choice and spelling, the vocabulary is adequate to convey the intended meaning clearly without impeding communication.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The writer uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including relative clauses and conditional structures. There are several frequent error-free sentences, such as 'While competition often drives ambition and progress, cooperation ensures harmony and collective achievements.' However, some grammatical errors persist throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('competition always act'), tense misuse ('it will resulted in'), and prepositional slips ('result in to'). Punctuation is generally acceptable, but minor structural awkwardness in the concluding sentence ('leads to new ideas') indicates some lack of full control over complex forms.

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