Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-08-24
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 5.5)
Many individuals believe that the working days of the week should be shorter, while they believe that the employers should get long weekend. I partially agree that the workers should get long weekend and short week days.
On the one hand, giving a long weekend and keeping working days shorter can have many benefits to workers. One of the benefits is getting work-life balance. For instance, the workers who work 6 days a week will get exhausted by the end of week and are not able to spend time on their off day with family or friends. Therefore having balanced working days and off days is important to individual for better balancing between work and life.
In contrast, there are many drawbacks of giving less working days and long weekend to workers. The main disadvantage is to company or employee. One of the drawbacks is, if working days will get shorter it might affect the company's production. For instance, a company will not be able to generate enough amount of products without workers working till the weekend. Therefore, the providing shorter working days and longer weekend to employees can affect the revenue of a company.
In conclusion, i partially support that the workers should get shorter working days and longer weekend because of many advantages and disadvantages. As supporting this sentence could give benefit to individual in work-life balance, but at the same time it will be disadvantageous to owner of a company for generating revenue by the lesser production because of not enough working days.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The response addresses the prompt by providing a clear position of partial agreement. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited. While you mention work-life balance and production concerns, the arguments remain at a surface level. For instance, you state that production will be affected, but you do not explain why or how, such as mentioning the impact on service industries or global competitiveness. To reach a higher band, you should expand on your examples with more specific details or logical consequences. The conclusion is a bit repetitive, merely restating the points rather than synthesising them into a final thought.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The essay is logically organised into clear paragraphs, each with a distinct focus. You use basic cohesive devices such as 'On the one hand', 'In contrast', and 'Therefore' to link ideas. However, the use of these devices is sometimes mechanical, and the flow between sentences could be smoother. For example, the transition between the benefits and the drawbacks could be more sophisticated. Additionally, the referencing is occasionally unclear, such as in the phrase 'The main disadvantage is to company or employee', which lacks precision. Overall, the structure is coherent, but the range of cohesive devices is limited.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks the range and precision required for higher bands. You rely on simple, repetitive phrasing such as 'many benefits', 'many drawbacks', and 'shorter working days'. There are some inaccuracies in word choice, such as 'the employers should get long weekend' (where you likely meant 'employees') and 'generate enough amount of products'. To improve, you should aim to use more precise collocations and a wider variety of topic-specific vocabulary related to labour markets, productivity, and economic impact.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5
You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While the meaning is generally clear, there are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with articles ('the workers', 'the company's production') and pluralisation. For example, 'the providing shorter working days' is grammatically incorrect. There are also issues with subject-verb agreement and preposition usage. While these errors do not significantly impede communication, they occur frequently enough to prevent a higher score. Focusing on proofreading for basic grammatical accuracy and varying your sentence structure would be beneficial.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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