Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-09-29

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 6.0)

Competition at work, school or just in daily life in general is heavily influence by the type of society a certain induvidual is surrounded by. Depending on the type of person, it impacts significantly on how their views on life changes and what that person may be able to achieve in their future.

Let's start off with the positive side of it first. The underwhelming competitive feeling within a person may lead them to do better in their life. To engage with life and to carry on living, people need to set up certain goals in their life otherwise life may feel empty to many individuals. For example if a group of friends come to an agreement to compete with each other on an upcoming exam that they will face, everyone will ofcourse try to do their best. The feeling of beating someone else is necessary to fire up that motivation that exists within every human being. As a result of competition, every friends within that specific group of friends may just end up going well in their exams. Ofcourse there are also some negative impacts of competition. It's not all just positives. If an individual feels extremely pressured by competition, it may cause them to undergo depression or in some cases get physical. Physical in the sense that they start fighting. Competitions may exist for many reasons. For example if a person with short temper competes with someone else and ends up losing, they may feel devasted by their and start beating other people or throw things to get rid of their stress and anger. It depends heavily on the type of person someone is.

On the other hand for cooperativeness, it may help a society by building a non-toxic community within them. If people of a community don't have a sense of competing with each other, they may grow up to become a person with no serious issues with anyone else, which is pretty hard to see in recent days. For this, people may be able to lead a very peaceful and stress free life. It may not be same for every person on earth though. Humans are built in such a way that if there is no end goal set up or any feeling of being superior compared to others, they may end up not going so well in life. For example if someone is always kind and cooperative with other people without any sense of competition, they may lose motivation to do well in their career and may end up doing not so well.

Overall, competition and cooperation both plays a significant role in people's lives. I believe both must be balanced basesd on the seriousness of the situation. Both aspects are what makes us human beings.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the views on competition and cooperation, and the student presents a clear position in the conclusion. Ideas are relevant and extended, such as the example of friends competing for an exam and the negative psychological impacts of excessive pressure. However, some arguments lack full academic depth, and the phrase 'The underwhelming competitive feeling' appears to misuse 'underwhelming' when intending to describe a motivating drive. Despite minor conceptual slips, the task is successfully fulfilled, aligning well with the Band 6.5 to 7.0 profile. We will award a Band 6.5 for addressing the prompt adequately while keeping the development slightly informal and general.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with clear logical transitions between paragraphs, moving from an introduction to the positives and negatives of competition, then to cooperation, and finally to a balanced conclusion. Paragraphing is used sufficiently to separate distinct themes. However, cohesion is at times a bit mechanical or conversational (e.g., 'Let's start off with the positive side of it first'). Referencing is generally clear, though transitional phrases could be more sophisticated and varied to achieve a higher band. Overall, the organizational structure is easy to follow, making Band 6.5 the most appropriate score.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'underwhelming', 'devasted', and 'non-toxic community'. However, there are noticeable word-choice inaccuracies and spelling errors, such as 'induvidual' instead of 'individual', 'every friends' instead of 'every friend', and the misuse of 'underwhelming' to mean powerful or driving. While these errors do not impede communication, they restrict the lexical score to a Band 6.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The writer demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing conditional structures like 'If an individual feels extremely pressured...' and relative clauses. There are, however, several grammatical and punctuation errors throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('competition and cooperation both plays'), spelling/typographical slips ('basesd'), and awkward phrasing ('starts beating other people or throw things'). These errors persist but rarely impede overall communication, placing the response firmly in the Band 6.0 category.

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