Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-06
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 5.0)
Our society is devided into two thoughts on one debate. Competition is beneficial in different places like at work, school and in daily life, while some critics argue that it is important we should cooperate more effectively. From my perspective, we should make a greater effort to collaborate.
On the one hand, competition is beneficial way to compete with others at work and at school beacuse it helps to express your personality. In addition, competition encourages people to work harder and achieve better result as well as they often try to improve their skills and productivity. So, people can get an incetive to develop better product, services and technologies. For instance, employees may work more efficiently when promotions or bonuses are depanded on performance.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 4.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0
The response suffers from a major issue with length, as it is significantly below the minimum requirement of two hundred and fifty words. Furthermore, the task requires discussing both views and giving a personal opinion, but the student only manages to partially address this. The text touches upon the benefits of competition, mentioning how it helps to express personality and encourages productivity, but it fails to properly explore the alternative view regarding cooperation or fully develop its own position due to the extremely limited scope and underdeveloped ideas. To improve, the writer must ensure all parts of the prompt are given equal weight and that ideas are fully extended with supporting explanations and examples.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5
There is some basic organisation present, with a clear attempt to introduce the topic and use a transitional phrase like 'On the one hand' to begin the first body paragraph. However, the overall progression is limited because the essay cuts off prematurely after only one supporting paragraph, preventing a logical flow across a complete argument. Cohesive devices are minimal, and referencing is sometimes weak, such as using vague connectors like 'So' to link ideas. To reach higher bands, the writer needs to structure a complete multi-paragraph essay with clear overall progression, ensuring that each paragraph is logically linked to the next using a wider and more natural variety of cohesive devices.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The vocabulary used is minimally adequate for the task, providing a basic range that allows the writer to communicate general ideas about work and school. However, there are noticeable lexical errors, including spelling mistakes such as 'devided' instead of divided and 'incetive' instead of incentive, as well as inaccurate word choices like 'beneficial way to compete' and 'depanded' instead of dependent. These errors do not completely block communication, but they restrict the lexical score. To progress, the writer should build a wider resource of less common lexical items and pay closer attention to word forms, collocations, and accurate spelling.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5
The text displays a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on straightforward constructions with occasional attempts at complex forms that contain errors. There are frequent grammatical issues, such as subject-verb agreement errors and problems with prepositional phrases, exemplified in 'are depanded on performance' and awkward phrasing like 'it is important we should cooperate'. These errors can cause some difficulty for the reader. To achieve a higher band, the writer must incorporate a wider variety of complex sentence structures while maintaining better control over basic grammar, verb forms, and preposition usage to ensure error-free sentences.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
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