Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-16

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)

There has been a debate over the working week should be shorter and workers should have a longer weekend. In many countries, saturday and sunday are weekend in different work fields. The routine is a usual 9 to 5, which sometimes gets extremely hard for anyone to continue in the same rythem. Sometimes, people do need a longer weekend.

On one side, I agree to the fact that workers should have longer weekend. People do need time with their families more and even to themselves. Stepping away from the work stations, spending time with families, freshens their mind. It is quite good for mental health.

On the other side, I disagree with this statement. The more people gets a free time, the more lazy they get. If someone manages work, family and friends, making sure everyone gets time evenly. Then, working days are no longer difficult for them. I agree, a person should get a free time or long weekend only to themselves. The stressful working days should give a break to everyone.

There was this one job, that i used to do in laboratory, in the evening. The management was not allowing any holiday or a break for me, as I was an internee. It was difficult for me to concentrate on my work, as there used to be no break. This forced me to leave that job, because it was very stressful.

I believe, the working days and weekends should be equal. Thereby, making employees comfortable with work alongside with their families, can help grow a better enviroment.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.5

Your response addresses the question and includes reasons on both sides, as well as a relevant personal example about the laboratory job. However, the position is not consistently clear: you first agree that workers need longer weekends, then disagree, and later say weekends and working days should be equal. The point that more free time makes people “lazy” is asserted rather than explained, while the personal example supports the need for breaks but does not directly establish whether the whole working week should be shorter. The conclusion also introduces an unclear proposal. The response is 247 words, three words below the 250-word minimum; the 13 words copied from the prompt are not counted. Develop one clear position and explain how each example supports it.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The response has a recognisable paragraph structure: an introduction, two contrasting points, a personal example, and a conclusion. This gives the reader some organisation, and phrases such as “On one side” and “On the other side” signal a change in viewpoint. However, progression is limited because the essay moves between agreement, disagreement, and a final claim that working days and weekends should be equal without resolving these positions. Some links are mechanical, and the sentence beginning “If someone manages work, family and friends” is left as a fragment, making the relationship between ideas unclear. The personal example is separated from the argument rather than explicitly linked to a proposed shorter week. Use clearer topic sentences and transitions that show how each paragraph develops one consistent answer.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “mental health,” “stressful,” “management,” and “concentrate.” There are also attempts at less common expressions, such as “Stepping away from the work stations,” though the phrasing is not always natural. The range is limited and several noticeable word-choice, collocation, and spelling errors reduce precision: “gets a free time,” “longer weekend,” “same rythem,” and “better enviroment.” Repetition of “work,” “time,” and “weekend” also makes the language less flexible. Aim to learn common collocations for employment and rest, and check spelling carefully. More precise wording would help distinguish a shorter working week from simply having occasional time off.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex forms, for example “Stepping away from the work stations, spending time with families, freshens their mind” and the conditional structure beginning “If someone manages work, family and friends.” However, complex attempts are often faulty, and errors occur frequently enough to make some sentences difficult to follow. Examples include “There has been a debate over the working week should be shorter,” where the clause structure is incorrect, and “The more people gets a free time,” which has subject–verb agreement and article problems. The “If someone…” sentence is incomplete, while “I believe, the working days…” has incorrect punctuation. Practise complete clause structures, agreement, articles, and sentence boundaries; then proofread each sentence for a clear subject and main verb.

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