Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-15
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 summer holidays are the most debating topic around the world. In some countries, primary and secondary schools close for almost three months in the summer. Although long holidays help students to relax and enjoy holidays, the short holidays is helping to concentrate on studies.
On the one hand, long study break helps the students to relax their mind and concentrate on some physical activites. It benefits the students to maintain their mind relax and reduce the anxiety amung the students. For instance, students have no time to play in the acedemic year, while summer break has a chance to redce the burden of the studies.
Furthermore, this is neccessary to show their hidden skills like power lifting, running. Parents should have to sppourt their children to work on their skills rather than just focus on studies. Likewise, Students have no time to play and show their their skills to the world. It helps to show their skills to the world.
On the other hand, short holidays are essentail to concentrate on studies, while long break becomes the reason of lost interest in the students. It facilitates the students to understand the importance of studies. For example, most of the students come back to the school after the summer break lost the memory and then they have to restart their learing from the basic.
In summing up, long and short holidays have own benfits. Long term holidays helps the students to reduce their burden, whereas short term helps students to concentrate on studies.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The response addresses both parts of the task by discussing the value of long school holidays (such as reducing academic burden and encouraging physical activities) and the arguments in favour of shorter holidays (maintaining concentration and preventing learning loss). However, the development of ideas is limited and sometimes repetitive, as seen when the student repeatedly mentions that children have no time to play in the academic year. The position is generally clear, but the arguments lack deeper elaboration and supporting examples tend to be quite generalised, such as 'most of the students come back to the school after the summer break lost the memory'. This places the response comfortably at Band 6, where the task is addressed adequately, but ideas remain somewhat under-developed.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear logical progression, dividing the response into a distinct introduction, body paragraphs addressing each prompt question, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate ideas. Cohesive devices are employed, such as 'On the one hand', 'Furthermore', and 'On the other hand', but referencing and transitions are at times mechanical or faulty, as seen in 'this is neccessary to show their hidden skills'. Additionally, some sentences within paragraphs feel repetitive rather than advancing the argument progressively. These features align the response with the Band 6 descriptor, where cohesion is sometimes mechanical and referencing is not always completely clear.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'academic year', 'anxiety', and 'importance of studies'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice inaccuracies throughout the text, including 'debating topic' instead of 'debated topic', 'activites', 'amung', 'acedemic', 'redce', 'neccessary', 'sppourt', 'essentail', and 'benfits'. While these errors do not severely impede communication, they restrict the vocabulary score to Band 5.0, where an adequate range is shown alongside frequent errors that highlight a lack of precision and control over spelling and word formation.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing structures like subordinate clauses ('Although long holidays help...') and conditional/comparative constructions. However, grammatical accuracy is weak, featuring frequent errors such as subject-verb agreement issues ('the short holidays is helping'), missing articles ('come back to the school', 'after the summer break lost the memory'), and awkward phrasing ('long break becomes the reason of lost interest'). These errors occasionally cause strain for the reader, although meaning can generally still be deduced. This performance fits Band 5.0, characterized by a limited range of structures and frequent errors in grammar.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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