Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-30

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)

There is no denying the fact that some people believe that competition at work, at school and in daily life is a good thing. Others think that we should try to cooperate. while it is a commanly held belief that, competition at different daily activities such as work is giving good result. There is also an other argument that, handling those things as a team work will be better. This essay will analyze this topic from both points of view and express my opinion.

On one hand, when the competition is friendly people will give their best performance and this will lead to whole team improvment. in other words, when two people from the same team try to work harder then the other will end up with both of them doing their job as they should. In addition, including competition will create a jealousy that pushes people to work harder. For example, in football when the coach have two players that play on the same position, he bench the one with less performance and this will push the other player to work hard and take his place.

In the other hand, people can cooperate more and this will be usefull to both the work and people, it is also possible to say, cooperating can give results in the field you cooperate in and make people improve socially. Moreover, alot of success has been seen in the methode of cooperating because it make people comunicate their ideas and ask for help, this ideas sharing will cover all the unknown informations. For instance, most of this world's countries depends on cooperation to make the country more democratic.

In conclustion, there are no easy answers to this question. On balance, however, i believe that, competition at work, at school and in daily life is a good thing for real.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.0
Coherence and Cohesion5.0
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.0

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

You address both sides of the discussion and state a position in the conclusion: you favour competition. The football example gives some support to the claim that competition can motivate people, and you also mention cooperation’s benefits for communication and social development. However, the response only partially develops the task: the cooperation paragraph is broad, and the claim about countries becoming more democratic is not clearly explained or linked to everyday cooperation. Your position is also not consistently established in the introduction, which says the essay will present an opinion without indicating what it is. The response contains 277 words, with 29 words copied from the task prompt excluded from that count. To strengthen the answer, explain each main reason more fully and make your view clear from the beginning.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The response has a recognisable structure, with an introduction, separate paragraphs for the two views, and a conclusion. Phrases such as “On one hand,” “In addition,” and “For example” help signal relationships between ideas. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes unclear: the point that competition improves the “whole team” is followed by an explanation about two people doing their jobs, without fully showing the connection. Some linking expressions are inaccurate or repetitive, including “In the other hand,” and several sentences join multiple ideas without clear punctuation. The conclusion repeats the question’s wording rather than drawing together the discussion. Use accurate transitions, make each paragraph develop one central point, and connect examples explicitly to the claim they support.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “competition,” “cooperate,” “performance,” “team,” and “communicate their ideas.” This is enough to convey the main subject, but the range is limited and several word choices or collocations are noticeably inaccurate, sometimes making the meaning less clear. For example, “create a jealousy” is not a natural expression, and “cover all the unknown informations” is awkward and imprecise. Spelling errors such as “improvment,” “usefull,” and “comunicate” also reduce accuracy. Aim to use more precise topic vocabulary and check spelling and word forms. For instance, describe how cooperation enables people to “share knowledge” rather than saying it covers unknown information.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and complex sentences, including a conditional structure in “when the competition is friendly” and a relative clause in “the one with less performance.” However, complex sentences are often faulty, and frequent errors in agreement, articles, verb forms, and punctuation can make the reader work to understand your meaning. Examples include “the coach have two players,” “it make people,” and “i believe,” as well as sentence fragments or poorly joined clauses after “while” and “in other words.” Capitalisation and comma use are also inconsistent. Practise building accurate sentences with one main clause and a clearly connected supporting clause, then check subject–verb agreement and sentence boundaries before submitting.

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