Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-08-12

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

The working week should be shorter and workers should have a longer weekend.

Do you agree or disagree?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 5.0)

Yes I agree that the working week should be shorter because it is exhausting, when you work for Monday to Friday and it is almost everywhere a 9 to 5 jobs and you get no time for yourself and your family and yes the weekend should be longer so thus the person may have time for himself, for his skin care, for his family and for his trips.

From my experience I work in corporate sector so my wirking hours are 10 hours and I don't get enough time for myself and for my family and when the weekend came so I just sleep all weekend because it is not longer enough to remove my tiredness and then again the working hours staring so I am all exahusted going to work and It is not working for me.

My friend she is married and she has kid, she has to work for the corporate 10 hours and then on short weekends, she has to look after children so it is not easy task

I think the working hours should be short and the weekend longer so it will be easy for all of us to give our valuable time to our valuable people and I think it will reduce the mental health problems, in which now a days genz are facing because of the exhusting working hours we have a dilemma of mental health issues like depression, anxiety and many more so we need to reduce the working hours and increase the weekend to relax.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response addresses the prompt by clearly stating an agreement with the proposal to shorten the working week. However, the development of ideas is limited. While you provide personal anecdotes about corporate work and a friend's situation, these are anecdotal rather than analytical. The essay lacks a formal structure, such as a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The arguments regarding mental health and work-life balance are relevant but are presented in a repetitive, informal manner. To improve, you should aim to structure your essay into distinct paragraphs, each focusing on a specific reason, and provide more balanced, academic support for your position rather than relying solely on personal experience.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay lacks paragraphing, which is a fundamental requirement for a coherent response. The text is essentially one long, run-on block of ideas. While there is a logical flow in the sense that you start with your opinion and move to personal examples, the lack of clear transitions and paragraph breaks makes the text difficult to follow. You rely heavily on 'and' to connect clauses, which creates a repetitive and informal structure. To achieve a higher band, you must use clear paragraph breaks to separate your introduction, main arguments, and conclusion, and employ a wider variety of cohesive devices such as 'furthermore', 'consequently', or 'in addition'.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary is basic and repetitive. You frequently use simple words like 'work', 'time', and 'easy'. There are also several spelling errors, such as 'wirking', 'exahusted', and 'exhusting', which detract from the quality of the writing. While you attempt to use some topic-related vocabulary like 'corporate sector', 'mental health', 'depression', and 'anxiety', the overall range is limited. To improve, you should focus on using more precise synonyms and collocations. For example, instead of saying 'it is not working for me', you could use 'the current system is unsustainable'. Expanding your vocabulary to include more academic terms will help you convey your ideas with greater precision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The grammar is characterized by frequent errors in sentence structure, punctuation, and verb tense. Many sentences are run-on, such as the first paragraph, which consists of one long, poorly punctuated sentence. There are also issues with subject-verb agreement and article usage, for example, 'when the weekend came' (should be 'comes') and 'genz are facing' (should be 'Generation Z is facing'). The range of structures is limited to simple and compound sentences; there is a lack of complex sentence structures, such as relative clauses or conditional forms. Improving your control over basic punctuation and sentence boundaries is essential for clarity and to reach a higher band score.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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