Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-14

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)

In today's fast-paced world, competition and cooperation play vital role in daily life has long been debate. People want to become completely perfect in daily life tasks, and try to compete one another. Certain people believe that competition is a beneficial element in every field of life, while others argue that cooperation is the most effective thing instead of competition. From my perspective, both views have valid arguments in daily life, competition produces motivation and better performance, while cooperation offers teamwork and common goals.

On the one hand, competition can boost people's motivation. A significant number of people who works in office or studying at school try to compete each other for benefits and personal achivement. It can encourage to work harder and develop effective skills during work and studies. For Instance people who work at office eagerly interested to get promotion that's why they work harder and effectively. In addition, they can provide better perfomance and impress their manager, they can benefits to the company and improve econimic growth.

On the other hand, critics argue that we should concentrate on cooperation rather than competing others, working with others make people more cooperative. It develops teamwork and can achieve common goals through cooperation. For example if people work togather, they can achieve higher success. Futhermore, cooperation produces long term relationships between people. In modern challenges people cannot tackle individually but with team cooperation and different ideas make straightforward to handle these issues.

In conclusion, although competition leads to greater skills and achievements, but cooperation works long term in life and produce a large number of benefits such as good relationship and teamwork.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You discuss both sides and state a position: competition can motivate better performance, while cooperation supports teamwork and shared goals. The office-promotion example gives some support to the competition argument, and the point about complex challenges benefiting from different ideas is relevant to cooperation. However, the discussion remains general, and several claims are asserted rather than explained—for example, how competition improves a company’s economic growth or how cooperation creates long-term relationships. Your conclusion repeats the main contrast but does not clarify when one approach may be more valuable. Develop each side with a specific, explained example and make your own judgement more decisive throughout.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a clear overall arrangement: an introduction, separate paragraphs for the two views, and a conclusion. The signposts “On the one hand,” “On the other hand,” and “In conclusion” help readers follow the discussion, and ideas generally remain grouped by topic. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes mechanical, with repeated links such as “In addition” and “Furthermore” introducing points that are not fully connected or explained. Some references are also unclear, as in “they can benefits to the company,” where the subject and intended relationship are difficult to follow. Improve the links between claims and examples, and use referencing and transitions more precisely rather than relying mainly on standard signposts.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “motivation,” “promotion,” “teamwork,” “common goals,” and “long term relationships.” These choices communicate the main ideas, and there are attempts to use more specific language such as “economic growth.” However, the range is limited and several word-choice, collocation, and spelling errors reduce precision: “compete each other,” “personal achivement,” “eagerly interested,” and “straightforward to handle” are not natural or accurate in context. Repetition of “cooperation,” “people,” and “work” also limits flexibility. Build a wider set of accurate collocations for workplace and social contexts, and proofread spelling and word forms so your intended meaning is consistently clear.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentences, including a contrast in the introduction and clauses beginning with “while” and “although.” However, control is limited, and errors occur frequently enough to make some sentences difficult to process. For example, the opening sentence combines clauses without a clear grammatical structure, while “A significant number of people who works” has subject–verb disagreement. Other examples include “working with others make people” and the conclusion’s “although … but,” which creates an incorrect construction. Articles and sentence boundaries also need attention. Practise building accurate subject–verb patterns and joining clauses with one clear connector; then check each sentence for agreement, articles, and punctuation.

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