Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-11-14

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 5.5)

The most of countries have more than 2 months vacation in primary and secondary schools during the summer holidays. This system is intended for mentally recover for teachers. But some busy parents prefer less vacation, because they do not have enough time to focus on upbringing their child.

The employees in schools get uncountable stress due to pressure coming from the education industry. Especially, the teacher is one of the high responsibility job working under anxiety. Their duty time is not limited by total time worked in class with students. Because they have to work over-time to prepare study materials and focus to improve the teaching methods. All of this causes the stress, and long term vacation is somehow the only time that they can relieve the stress and depression. For instance, almost all teacher leave the city and start the domestic travel during the summer holidays. If you go to the rural area, it is common to see teachers enjoying their vacation.

In other hand, because of busy city life, sharing care to your kids is becoming impossible for parents. While, entering the university is challengeable for students. So, parents started to pushing their child form the young ages and share their parenting responsibility with schools, and this caused the reason of they prepare to choose longer term schooling. For example, The number of training centers are rapidly increasing to cover the school summer vacation.

In conclusion, long school holiday is only chance to recharge the energy for all employees in school. But these days, parents became more busy to manage their schedule due to care upbringing and pay attention on the children's education.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both questions: the first body paragraph explains how a long break may help school staff recover from work-related stress, while the next presents parents’ preference for shorter holidays because of childcare and educational concerns. The example of teachers travelling and the growth of training centres help make these points relevant. However, the response focuses heavily on teachers and gives little attention to the value of holidays for students, such as rest, family time or independent interests. The argument for shorter holidays is also not fully clear: the link between university competition, parental pressure and choosing longer schooling needs explanation. A clearer position and more developed, balanced reasons would make the response more complete.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure, with an introduction, two body paragraphs and a conclusion, and each body paragraph has a main focus. Examples are generally placed near the ideas they support. However, progression between points is sometimes difficult to follow, particularly in the paragraph beginning “In other hand,” where childcare, university entry, parental pressure and training centres are connected without clearly explaining the links. Some transitions are inaccurate or mechanical, including “But” at the start of the conclusion and “While” after a full stop. The conclusion repeats the main points rather than bringing them together into a clear final judgement. Use clearer topic sentences and explicit links between cause and effect.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You attempt vocabulary relevant to the topic, including “pressure,” “responsibility,” “relieve the stress” and “training centers,” and the reader can generally understand your intended meaning. There is also some effort to use less common expressions, such as “education industry.” However, word choice and collocation are often inaccurate or unnatural, as in “uncountable stress,” “high responsibility job,” “share their parenting responsibility with schools” and “care upbringing.” These choices sometimes make the argument harder to interpret. Several phrases also repeat general terms such as “busy” and “vacation.” Build a more precise range around school breaks, staff workload, childcare and student learning, and check how new words combine with one another.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and complex sentences, including cause-and-effect clauses and the conditional example “If you go to the rural area…”. However, control is inconsistent, and errors in sentence structure, agreement, articles and verb forms occur frequently enough to make some sentences difficult to read. For example, “The most of countries have” has an incorrect determiner, while “the teacher is one of the high responsibility job” has problems with number and sentence structure. In “parents started to pushing,” the verb pattern is incorrect, and “this caused the reason of they prepare” is not grammatically complete. Practise building accurate clauses first, especially after connectors such as “because” and “while,” then check subject–verb agreement and verb forms.

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