Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-02

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 people believe that competition against each other at workplace, at instituation and in regular life is a good thing, while others argued that they should try to help each other. Competition may increase individuals performance. However, I believe that cooperating to each other may help to develop different skills to learn.

Competition with each other can increase individuals perfomance in all sectors. This is because people will more focus on their specific skills. They will develop more strategies to glorify their skills, which allow them to make unique decision in their workplace or their lives. As a result, they will perform better, which will create more chance to exposure to authorities. For example, If an individual focus on their skills in their workplace, they can express their uniqueness to their manager and they may be promoted for their individuals performance.

On the other hand, cooperating with each other will help to develop people to learn more skills. This is mainly because people can learn a lot of skills from others, which allow them to improve their weakness on specific skills. Moreover, people can build a good relationship through the team engaging, which help them to build good communication with each other. Consequently, it will boost up their overall performance. For instance, people who have lack confidence in thier workplace, they can learn from thier colleauges. Therefore, they feel motivated from their job places.

In conclusion, although, some people believe that competition with each may increase their individuals performance, I believe that cooperating with each other may increase people overall performance by learning different skills from others.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the views on competition and cooperation and provides a clear personal opinion in the introduction and conclusion. However, the ideas remain somewhat limited and under-developed, which keeps the response at this level. For instance, the discussion on how competition increases performance is supported by a general statement about focusing on skills, but the example provided in the second paragraph remains repetitive and lacks specific depth. Similarly, the points made about cooperation helping to learn new skills and build relationships in the third paragraph are introduced logically, yet the elaboration tends to generalise rather than extend the ideas fully. The position is clear throughout, but fuller development of the supporting examples and deeper exploration of the arguments would be required to reach a higher level.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The text presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt at logical organisation. Each body paragraph has a distinct focus, with the second paragraph dedicated to competition and the third paragraph addressing cooperation, framed by a clear introduction and conclusion. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical and features noticeable issues with referencing. For example, phrases such as 'This is because' and 'This is mainly because' are used repetitively to introduce explanations. Furthermore, referencing pronouns are occasionally unclear, as seen in 'cooperating to each other' and 'cooperating with each other will help to develop people'. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate the competing views, but the overall flow between sentences would benefit from a wider variety of cohesive devices rather than relying on formulaic transitions.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'unique decision', 'overall performance', and 'colleauges'. However, there are noticeable errors in word choice, word form, and spelling that reflect a limited and repetitive range. Examples of inappropriate word choice include 'at workplace' instead of 'in the workplace', 'at instituation' instead of 'at institutions', and 'regular life' instead of 'daily life'. Additionally, spelling errors such as 'perfomance', 'colleauges', and 'thier' appear across the text. While these lexical shortcomings do not completely impede communication, the frequent inaccuracies in collocation and word form prevent the response from achieving a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilising structures such as conditional and relative clauses like 'people who have lack confidence in thier workplace'. There is a presence of grammatical errors involving prepositions, articles, and verb forms, though they rarely impede overall communication. Noticeable errors include 'competition to each other' instead of 'with each other', 'individuals performance' instead of 'individual performance', and missing articles such as 'in workplace'. There are also issues with subject-verb agreement and prepositional patterns inside grammatical structures, such as 'chance to exposure' and 'feel motivated from their job places'. Control over complex sentences is inconsistent, resulting in frequent minor errors that prevent the grammar from being considered more accurate.

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