Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-08-27

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 5.0)

Introduction:

I numerous nation schools , college and universities are shut for shorter holidays or two months. In school students are want to break in study. They feel stress because they studied daily for eight month. The short holidays are extended. During vacations students go to journey in many beautiful areas. Long school holidays are valuable for rest but this is not benificial for student education. During stress students want long holidays they want to enjoy our life. This is our right to make enjoy full our study and life. When we go to visit any area or historical buildings then our knowledge is increased. This is help full to live our life. They have time to recover academic pressure of school year.

But short holidays are excellent for students these holidays have a positive impact on study. When students spent a time with our family then their stress become low. But holidays for two months learning loss and students forget their material who they studied.

In conclusion:

Long summer holidays offer valuable time for rest , family and other activities , shorter holidays may be more for maintaining academic progress and supporting working families. a compromise such as slightly shorter summer breaks with additional shorter holidays throughout the year , could provide the best of both approaches. we should focus on our health with studies because without health we cannot get education.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.0
Coherence and Cohesion5.0
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.0

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response addresses both parts of the prompt, discussing the value of long holidays and the arguments for shorter ones. However, the essay is significantly under the 250-word minimum, which limits the depth of the arguments. Ideas are presented but remain underdeveloped; for instance, the point about 'learning loss' is mentioned but not fully explained or supported with specific examples. Additionally, the position is somewhat inconsistent, as the introduction suggests long holidays are not beneficial, while the conclusion advocates for a compromise. The failure to meet the word count requirement is a major constraint on the development of the response.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay is organized into an introduction, a body paragraph, and a conclusion, which provides a basic structure. However, the progression of ideas is often disjointed. Cohesive devices are used in a very mechanical and sometimes inaccurate way, such as the abrupt transition 'But short holidays are excellent'. Referencing is also problematic; for example, the use of 'our' instead of 'their' when referring to students creates confusion. Paragraphing is present but the internal flow within paragraphs is weak, making the overall argument difficult to follow at times.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary is limited and repetitive, often relying on basic terms like 'good', 'beautiful', and 'study'. There are frequent errors in word choice and collocation, such as 'go to journey' instead of 'go on trips' and 'recover academic pressure' instead of 'recover from academic pressure'. The student attempts to use some academic vocabulary, but these attempts are often inaccurate, which hinders the precision of the writing. To improve, the student needs to focus on learning collocations and using more varied, topic-specific vocabulary.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay relies heavily on simple sentence structures. There are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('students are want to break'), incorrect verb tenses, and missing articles. Punctuation is also inconsistent, with spaces placed before commas and periods. While the meaning is generally understandable, the high frequency of errors and the lack of complex sentence structures significantly impact the quality of the writing. The student needs to focus on basic sentence construction and proofreading for common grammatical slips.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.