Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-11-12

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In many countries, primary and secondary schools close for two months or more in the summer holidays.

What is the value of long school holidays?

What are the arguments in favour of shorter school holidays?

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

Student answer (Band 6.0)

Many nations give summer vacations for two or more months. While these lengthy vacations offer significant benefits and rest, there are also arguments for shortening them to prevent academic loss.

Extended school holidays provides student with the opportunity to recover from the pressure of the academic year and explore interests in outside activities. These vacations help them to gain experience in their desired field because in school days it is very hard for students to do extra curricular activities and part time job because of their hectic routine. So, these holidays help them to relax and pursue hobbies like traveling and spend quality time with relatives. For instance, many student use their summer holidays to learn useful skills and help their family financially. They also gain practical skills of interest like swimming, communication and volunteering.

On the other hand, extended holidays can make impact on students interest after spending months in leisure, students may find hard to go back to the hectic riutine of schools. Educational survey also highlights that the students forget a portion of what they learn before holidays, forcing teachers to spent weeks to reviewing old materials. It can waste a lot of time and slow the productivity of learners, it also burdens working parents financially becuase they have to pay extra for daycare and nannies for taking care of younger children. They also have to arrange expensive summer trips and take unpaid leaves to care and spend time with childrens. Shorter more frequent holidays throughout the year are ideal because it helps student to relax without forgeting their educational lessons.

In conclusion, although long summer vacations are valuable for preventing burnout and help learn skills, shortening them would help prevent loss of lerarned material and better align with working families.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response addresses both questions and presents a clear overall view: long holidays allow rest and personal development, while shorter breaks may reduce learning loss and ease pressure on working parents. Relevant examples include students learning skills, doing part-time work, and parents paying for childcare. This meets the task well, but the two sides are not equally developed. The benefits are supported with several activities, whereas the case for shorter holidays relies mainly on forgetting material and childcare costs. The claim that shorter, more frequent holidays are ideal is introduced late and would be stronger if explained and linked to the earlier arguments. Developing this recommendation and supporting the academic-loss point more specifically would make the response more complete and persuasive.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The essay has a clear overall structure: an introduction, separate paragraphs for the benefits and arguments for shorter holidays, and a conclusion. The contrastive opening of the second body paragraph helps signal the shift in focus, and the conclusion returns to the main ideas. Within paragraphs, however, some connections are abrupt or unclear. For example, the sentence beginning “On the other hand, extended holidays can make impact…” runs several distinct points together, and the relationship between shorter holidays and “more frequent holidays throughout the year” is not fully explained. Some linking phrases, such as “So” and “They also,” are repetitive or have unclear references. Use clearer sentence boundaries and explicit links between each reason and the central argument.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The response uses a relevant range of vocabulary, including “academic year,” “pursue hobbies,” “practical skills,” “productivity,” and “financially,” which helps communicate the main ideas. It also attempts topic-specific expressions such as “academic loss” and “working parents.” However, noticeable word-choice, collocation, word-form, and spelling errors reduce precision: “make impact,” “students interest,” “hectic riutine,” and “forgeting” are examples. Some phrases are also awkward, such as “gain experience in their desired field” when referring broadly to holiday activities. Aim for accurate, natural combinations and check spelling carefully. More precise phrasing would help distinguish academic benefits, family costs, and leisure activities without relying on repeated general terms such as “help” and “holidays.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

There is an attempt to use both simple and complex sentence forms, including clauses with “because,” “although,” and “while.” The overall meaning is generally understandable, but errors in agreement, articles, verb forms, and sentence boundaries occur across the response. For example, “Extended school holidays provides student” has a subject–verb agreement error and a missing plural form; “many student use” also needs plural agreement. In “students may find hard to go back,” the infinitive construction is incomplete, while “forcing teachers to spent” uses the wrong verb form. The sentence beginning “On the other hand” also joins several clauses without clear punctuation. Review agreement and verb patterns, and divide long sentences where they contain multiple separate claims. Greater accuracy across these structures would improve control.

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