Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-09

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)

Daily life activities such as school and work occupy a lot of challenges and missions, some people believe that having competition is a good thing to encourage each other to attend certain goals. Others disagree with this idea, believing that cooperation is the key.

On one hand ,in many activities ,competition can have several advantages, it can result to creativity, it is capable of putting pressure on people to achieve more and have better results than others, beacause when people compete with one another, they are often encouraged to work harder, develop new skills and achieve better results.

For example, students who compete for high grades may spend more time and energy studying and become more disciplined. Similarly, competition in companies at work can encourage them to improve the quality of their work and produts and offer better services. However excessive competition can cause trouble, stress, jealousy and a willingless to succeed at the expenses of others.

On the other hand, coorperation allows people to share knowledge, exchange ideas and support one another.

At school, students who work in groups can learn from their classmates and develop important communication skills.

In workplace, employees who coorperate can solve company problems faster and more effectively and achieve results than could be hard to achieve individually. For instance, a team working on a project cooperates to exchange ideas and information in order to combine different skills, as a result, they can develop an affective solution.

In my opinion, although competition has its place in society, cooperation should be given greater importance. Competion can encourage people to work well, but in many cases, it can develop hard feelings between individuals and lead to unecessary pressure within winning is the ultimate goal. By contrast, cooperation promotes trust, strengthens relationships and benefits the entire group.

In conclusion, competition can encourage ambition and progress, whereas cooperation promotes teamwork and mutual understanding. I believe that a balance between the two is desirable, but cooperation should take priority because long-term success often depends on people's ability to work together.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

You address both sides of the discussion and make your position clear: competition can motivate people, but cooperation should take priority. Relevant examples from school and work support the main points, including students studying harder for grades and employees combining skills on a project. This meets the task well overall. However, some ideas are asserted rather than fully explained. For instance, you say competition can “result to creativity” without showing how it produces creative outcomes, and the disadvantages of competition are listed but not illustrated. The conclusion introduces a balance between the two approaches, which could be reconciled more explicitly with your preference for cooperation. Develop these points with clearer cause-and-effect reasoning and a more specific example.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response has a clear overall structure: an introduction, separate paragraphs discussing competition and cooperation, your opinion, and a conclusion. This makes the discussion easy to follow, and signposts such as “On one hand,” “On the other hand,” and “In conclusion” help identify each stage. The progression is generally logical, though some connections are mechanical or unclear. The competition paragraph moves from benefits to drawbacks with “However,” but the drawback is not developed; the cooperation example also contains a long sentence where the relationship between exchanging ideas and the result could be clearer. Improve cohesion by linking each example directly to the claim it supports and varying transitions rather than relying mainly on standard signposting.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use a relevant range of topic vocabulary, including “competition,” “cooperation,” “disciplined,” “communication skills,” and “mutual understanding.” These choices allow you to discuss both individual and group outcomes. However, noticeable spelling errors and inaccurate word combinations reduce precision: “coorperation,” “produts,” “willingless,” and “unecessary” should be corrected, while “result to creativity” and “at the expenses of others” are not natural expressions. Some wording is also vague, such as “activities” and “certain goals.” Aim for accurate collocations and more precise terms, for example, describe competition as “fostering creativity” and explain what goals or outcomes people pursue.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt a mix of simple and complex sentences, including clauses introduced by “when,” “who,” and “although,” and most of the argument remains understandable. Some sentence structures and punctuation, however, make the writing less controlled. The opening sentence joins several ideas with commas, and “On one hand ,in many activities ,competition…” has awkward punctuation and clause boundaries. The phrase “within winning is the ultimate goal” also makes the intended relationship unclear. Use full stops or semicolons to separate complete ideas, and check article use and sentence patterns, such as “In the workplace” and “results that would be difficult to achieve individually.” More consistent control of these structures would improve accuracy.

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