Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-09-17

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)

There is a belief system that working span should be controlled throughout the week and workers should be allowed to have a longer holidays on their weekends. Despite, weekends play a crucial role in improved performances, I strongly disagree with the statement because expanding the weekend holidays may cause deleterious impacts on economy and creativity.

Spending time away from work place is indeed helpful in regaining strength and relaxation among workers but widespread adoption of longer weekends may hinder their abilities to stand out in businesses and markets. For instance, many international companies when they send their workers at homes to their countries a noticeable change seems to occur in their behaviour towards their jobs they are reported to act more lazy and having problems with task management.

Moreover, if work areas and industries will remained closed for longer days it will be devastating for economical growth as to ensure productivity, production at a constant pace according to the market needs is of great importance for our economy and its growth. For example, during Corona virus pandemic industries and markets around the work was completely closed everyone was sitting at their homes in quarantine consequently many changes were seen in market trends as the world became more advanced through internet, online businesses got highly famous among people.

I believe that weekends lengths should remain same as they are and as they were in the past because extending the holidays for workers is not merely a good idea for industrial growth and it may cause lose of creativity among working class.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt by clearly stating a position against a shorter working week and longer weekends. The main ideas are centered around economic impacts and potential losses in creativity. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited and relies on sweeping assertions. For instance, the claim that employees sent home act lazier lacks rigorous support, and the example regarding the COVID-19 pandemic is somewhat loosely connected to the argument against longer weekends. While all parts of the task are addressed, the support remains basic and lacks the depth expected for a higher band. Therefore, the performance aligns best with the Band 6 descriptors, as the main position is presented and supported, but the arguments require more thorough elaboration and more precise examples to achieve a higher score.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is divided into an introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion, showing a clear overall structure and a logical progression of thought from personal performance to broader economic concerns. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'Despite,' 'For instance,' and 'Moreover,' though some transitions feel a bit mechanical or awkward, such as starting a sentence with 'Despite, weekends play...'. Paragraphing is used adequately to separate distinct ideas, including the discussion on international companies and the pandemic example. Referencing is generally clear, though minor issues with punctuation around conjunctions disrupt the natural flow. Overall, the organization is coherent enough to merit a Band 6, as the relationship between ideas is apparent even if the cohesive mechanisms are sometimes imprecise.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student attempts to use a range of vocabulary suitable for an academic discussion, including terms such as 'deleterious impacts,' 'productivity,' and 'economical growth' (though 'economic growth' would be more precise). There are noticeable lexical and collocational errors throughout the text, such as 'working span' instead of 'working hours,' 'longer holidays on their weekends,' and 'lose of creativity' instead of 'loss of creativity.' Additionally, phrasing like 'more lazy' demonstrates a lack of precision in word formation. While the vocabulary is adequate to convey the main arguments, these frequent minor errors and awkward collocations place the response firmly in the Band 5 category, where vocabulary is minimally adequate for the task but contains noticeable inaccuracies.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, incorporating subordinate clauses introduced by 'although,' 'if,' and 'because.' However, there are frequent grammatical errors and punctuation issues that disrupt the flow. Examples include missing articles ('work place,' 'market trends'), incorrect preposition use ('away from work place'), and punctuation slips such as fragmenting or run-on tendencies. For instance, the opening sentence 'Despite, weekends play a crucial role...' misuses 'Despite' as a conjunction, and the sentence regarding the pandemic contains a comma splice ('...was completely closed everyone was sitting...'). Because these errors recur throughout the text and require some effort from the reader to parse, the response corresponds to Band 5 for grammatical range and accuracy.

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

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