Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-08-17

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

It is sometimes possible to pay somebody to do things you don't want to do, or don't have time to do, for example, household chores or looking after children.

Is this a good way of providing work for others?

Should people do these things themselves?

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

Student answer (Band 5.0)

In many urban areas, individuals are preferring to do work for long hours and have hectic routines lead to the deterioration of family time. This condition is weakening the family bond and creating emotional exhaustion; however, it is can be addressed by choosing flexible schedules and maintain sustainable balance in a life.

The prominent dilemma is the gradual decline in family time. When people continue work for maximum hours and perform multitasks, they hardly get time to spend with their spouses and children, which weaken their relationships. This condition decreases their emotional attachments, care and love among them. For example, parents who are working in Amazon company obtain overtime regularly, especially during peck season, which leads to a destructive affect on their children's academic perform because they have got very less scores in their finals. Another significant problem is emotional stress. People do not get enough sleeping hours while doing work for longer hours, which adversely affects overall well-being and dramatically decline the productivity.

These problems can be mitigated by more effective solutions, the main one is employers should offers flexible working hours and reasonable restriction on overtime, by which employees can spend their quality time with their family. This is indirectly strengthen their relationships, making every moment more lively and enjoyable. For instance, Toronto financial organization is offering flexible schedules and providing limited hours to their workers so that they can perform well in their personal simultaneously. Another a viable solution is that people should do work for reasonable hours so that they can complete their sleeping cycle, which plays a vital role to boost the concentration and alleviate the stress.

In conclusion, weaken relationships and emotional exhaustion are the major problems of working longer hours. These arrangements could be reduced by selecting flexible timetable and getting enough sleep to refresh mind

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The response fails to address the specific prompt provided. The task asks about the implications of paying others to perform household chores or childcare, specifically whether this is a good way to provide work and whether people should do these tasks themselves. Instead, the essay focuses entirely on the general issue of long working hours, work-life balance, and employee stress. Because the core topic of outsourcing domestic tasks is completely ignored, the response does not address the prompt's requirements. While the ideas are presented in a structured way, they are irrelevant to the specific questions asked, resulting in a low score for task achievement.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into clear paragraphs, and there is a logical progression of ideas within the context of the student's chosen topic (work-life balance). Cohesive devices such as 'however', 'for example', and 'in conclusion' are used to link sentences and paragraphs. However, the referencing is sometimes mechanical, and the flow is occasionally interrupted by grammatical errors that make the logical connections between ideas less smooth. Despite the irrelevance of the content to the prompt, the internal structure of the argument is coherent and easy to follow.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks the precision and range required for higher bands. The student uses some relevant terms like 'deterioration', 'mitigated', and 'alleviate', but there are frequent errors in word choice and collocation, such as 'destructive affect' (should be 'effect'), 'peck season' (likely 'peak'), and 'perform well in their personal' (incomplete phrase). These errors do not generally impede communication, but they demonstrate a limited control over more sophisticated lexical items.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. However, there are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('employers should offers'), incorrect verb forms ('it is can be addressed'), and awkward phrasing ('dramatically decline the productivity'). While the meaning is usually clear, the high frequency of errors in basic grammar and sentence construction prevents the writing from reaching a higher band. Punctuation is generally functional, but the overall control of complex structures is inconsistent.

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

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