Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · 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 5.5)

Nowadays, many people believe that competitinon at professional places and in daily life is beneficial. While, others argue that wes should try to cooprate more, rather than competing against each other. Therefor ahead of my opinion , both the views are discussed further.

Commenting upon the former view, competition motivates pepole to work harder and improvve their performance. It was creates ambition and encourages people to achieve better results. However, cocoperation promotes teamwork and allows people to share knowledge and skills. While, working together can make difficult tasks easier and help achieve common goals. For instance, students can compete for better grades but also cooperate for sharing notes and ideas.

I believe cooperation should be given more importance than competition. Excessive competition can cause stress, pressure and unhealthy rivalry. In addition, cooperation creates a supportive environment and improves long-term relationships. Mvertheless, a modrate level of competition can still encourage personal growth and motivation.

To conclude and offer my opinion, although both competition and cooperation are beneficial, i believe cooperation should be given greater importance as it promotes teamwork and mutual support.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response addresses both parts of the prompt by discussing both competition and cooperation, and it presents a clear position that cooperation is more important. However, the length requirement is not met, as the response contains only 181 words, which is well below the 250-word minimum. This significantly limits the development of ideas. While the arguments about stress and teamwork are relevant, they remain somewhat superficial and under-developed due to the restricted length. Consequently, the task is addressed only partially, which directly impacts the band score according to the criteria for under-length responses.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay demonstrates a clear overall structure with an introduction, body paragraphs addressing each view, an opinion paragraph, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used sufficiently and appropriately to separate distinct ideas. Cohesive devices are employed, such as 'Commenting upon the former view', 'However', and 'In addition'. Although some mechanical transitions are present, such as the slightly awkward opening of the conclusion, the logical progression is generally maintained. Referencing is mostly clear, and the overall arrangement allows the reader to follow the writer's argument without significant confusion, placing it comfortably in the mid-band range.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student displays an adequate vocabulary range for the task, attempting words and phrases like 'beneficial', 'ambition', 'unhealthy rivalry', and 'supportive environment'. However, there are multiple spelling errors throughout the text, including 'competitinon', 'wes', 'cooprate', 'Therefor', 'pepole', 'improvve', 'cocoperation', 'Mvertheless', 'modrate', and the lowercase 'i'. These errors highlight an issue with spelling accuracy. Nevertheless, communication is not severely impeded because the intended meaning remains transparent. The lexical range is minimally adequate, but the frequent errors prevent it from reaching a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The writer uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating clauses with 'while', 'although', and 'for instance'. There are, however, several grammatical and punctuation errors that persist. Examples include punctuation issues around transition words like 'While, others argue' and 'While, working together', as well as awkward phrasing in 'ahead of my opinion'. There are also capitalization errors at the beginning of sentences and with the pronoun 'i'. Despite these flaws, the grammatical errors rarely impede overall communication, and the sentence structures demonstrate an attempt at variety. This aligns with the descriptors for a competent performance with recurring errors.

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