Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-22

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)

Nowadays, competition at work, school or in daily life is very common thing. Most individuals believe that competition is beneficial thing because it helps to motivate people and improve skills. On the other hand, others argue that cooperate with each other encourage teamwork, and also reduce stress and conflict. From my perspective, i largely agree with cooperative work at work place , school or in daily life.

Firstly, Competition is beneficial for employees or students. It helps to motivate people to do better work. Students, for instance, have lack of interest into studies, competitions will encourage their mental health for doing better results in exams.Therefore, It will be benefitted to those peoples who have lack of motivations. Closely linked to this situations is that competition has also helps to improve skills and performance. Employees, for example, are let down for their work when they did not work properly , then they were in the full swing to work hard . As a result. competition helps to learn work more effectively.

Nevertheless, sometimes competition is not beneficial for everyone because it can cause stress and conflict between employees or students. However, cooperative work hleps people to reduce stress and conflict. They can work by their freedom of choice. For example, employees who are working in cooperative mind, they can easily complete it without taking extra time. Therefore, its good impact on office or school environment. Similarly, it will encourage teamwork which helps everyone to be mindful and concentrated. Students, for instance, can divided their peoject work themselves, which helps them to do it easily. Thus, cooperative working mind also helps in mental and physical health because they do not need to take extra tension or burden from office, school or daily life.

In conclusion, although competition is good for them who have lack of interest in work or study, cooperative working mind is very helpful for our mind relaxation and refreshment.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You address both sides of the discussion and state a clear preference for cooperation: “From my perspective, I largely agree with cooperative work.” The response gives relevant reasons, including motivation and skill development for competition, and reduced stress and teamwork for cooperation. However, the two views are not developed equally: the benefits of cooperation receive more explanation, while the competition examples are sometimes unclear, particularly the account of employees being “let down” and then working harder. Some claims, such as competition encouraging students’ “mental health,” are not clearly connected to the point. To strengthen the response, explain each example more precisely and show how it supports the relevant benefit, while maintaining your position throughout.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay has a clear overall structure: an introduction, a paragraph on competition, a paragraph focused on cooperation, and a conclusion. Linking expressions such as “Firstly,” “Nevertheless,” and “In conclusion” help signal the stages of the argument. However, some connections are mechanical or unclear. For example, “Closely linked to this situations” does not clearly show how the next point relates, and “As a result.” is incorrectly separated from the sentence that follows. References such as “it” in “they can easily complete it” are also unclear. Improve progression by linking each example directly to its main idea and checking that pronouns have an unmistakable reference. This would make the organisation more consistently easy to follow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use vocabulary relevant to the topic, including “motivate,” “teamwork,” “stress,” “conflict,” and “performance,” so the main ideas are generally understandable. However, the range is limited by repeated words and phrases such as “helps,” “work,” and “competition,” and several combinations are unnatural or imprecise. For instance, “encourage their mental health for doing better results” does not express the intended benefit clearly, while “cooperative working mind” is an awkward way to describe collaboration. There are also spelling errors, including “hleps” and “peoject.” Build a more precise range of topic vocabulary and check common word partnerships; this will help you express your ideas more naturally and avoid occasional difficulty for the reader.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentences, including clauses introduced by “because,” “which,” and “although.” This gives the response some structural variety, and the overall meaning can usually be followed. However, errors occur across sentence forms and sometimes make relationships between ideas difficult to understand. Examples include “Most individuals believe that competition is beneficial thing,” “competition has also helps,” and “Students… can divided their project work themselves.” There are also problems with sentence boundaries and punctuation, as in “As a result. competition,” and inconsistent capitalisation after full stops. Review articles, verb forms, and sentence boundaries, then proofread each sentence for a complete and grammatically consistent structure.

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