Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · 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 5.5)

several people believe that, competition at work, at school and in daily life is more beneficial

and many other people think that we need to cooperate rather than competing with each other. in my opinion cooperation is the best option rather than competing due to the fact, cooperation provide team work and mutual understanding.

on the one hand competition can encourage students to work hard at school due to the fact they want excellent grades. when students compete with their classmate they become more motivated and start to learn more as to become topper of the class. In workpace employee compete with each other to have better opportunities, it encorage employee to develope more skills and knowledge.For instance students compete with each other in acedamic to get better score, moreover healthy competition is far better than unhealthy competion due to the fact it can cause many serious problems for instance parents compare their child with other childerns so they become stressfull and commit sucide this is negative effect of compition, as every students has their own capabilities to work.

So in personal experience cooperation is far better than competion, working togethere can create positive environment and can reduce stress. it help to encourage students to work mutually. Its help to share ideas, knowledge and expriences. In work place it helps to achieve goals. for instance in work place if a employee work with cooperation the work will definetly go smoothly.and when students work under a group project they acn share responsibilities and learn from each other.

in conclusion i would say every one should work with cooperation it leads to better and positive environment and helps to share knowledge and creats mutual understanding.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You address both sides of the discussion and state a clear preference for cooperation in the opening and conclusion. The benefits of competition are illustrated through students seeking better grades and employees aiming for better opportunities, while cooperation is linked to sharing ideas and completing group projects. These are relevant responses to the task. However, some points are asserted rather than fully explained: the example about parents comparing children introduces the harmful effects of competition but is not clearly connected to the distinction between healthy and unhealthy competition. The cooperation argument could also be developed with a specific example showing how teamwork improves an outcome. More balanced explanation of these ideas would make the response more complete.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, a paragraph on competition, a paragraph supporting cooperation, and a conclusion. Phrases such as “on the one hand,” “for instance,” and “in conclusion” help signal the direction of the discussion. However, progression within the competition paragraph is uneven: it moves from academic motivation to workplace opportunities, then to parental pressure and suicide without sufficiently clear links. Several ideas are joined in very long sentences, making relationships between them harder to follow. The repeated use of “due to the fact” and “for instance” also makes cohesion mechanical. Use shorter sentences, organise each paragraph around one main point, and make references such as “it” clearly identify their subject.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “competition,” “cooperation,” “opportunities,” “responsibilities,” and “mutual understanding.” This gives you enough language to communicate the main ideas. However, the range is limited by repeated words such as “work,” “students,” and “compete,” and several word choices or collocations are inaccurate, including “become topper,” “work with cooperation,” and “better score.” Spelling errors such as “encorage,” “develope,” and “competion” are noticeable and sometimes make reading less smooth. Build a wider set of accurate topic phrases and check spelling carefully; this would make your meaning clearer and more natural.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and complex sentences, including clauses with “when,” “so,” and “if,” and the overall meaning is generally understandable. However, control is inconsistent, particularly in longer sentences. For example, “cooperation provide team work” has a subject–verb agreement error, while “it help to encourage students” and “Its help to share ideas” also show problems with agreement and sentence construction. Articles and plurals are often missing or inconsistent, as in “with their classmate” and “a employee.” Punctuation and capitalisation are also unreliable, with several sentences running together. Practise accurate agreement, articles, and sentence boundaries, and divide complex ideas into shorter, controlled sentences.

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