Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-16

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)

In recent years, it is common in almost all countries about offering long holidays in schools. Some believe that extended vacations provide valuable opportunities and personal growth of students, while others argue that school holidays should be shorter. This essay will discuss both views.

Longer vacations contribute significant benefits. Firstly learners have enough time to relax from exams and studies pressure from several months. Students get enough time in these holidays to recover from stress and rejoin school with fresh minds. This will increase their mental and physical growth. Secondly longer school holidays provide enough time to spend with their family members, travel, participate in sports activities, or do volunteer in summer programs. For example, some students devote their time in different camps where they provide assistance to weak individuals in a society. As a result, their skills like, communication, leadership, management etc are polished.

On the other hand there are significant arguments in the favour of shorter school holidays. One of the major concerns is that students may forget what they learn in longer holidays. In a response, teachers are likely to revise the previous lectures in reopening of educational institutions. This is because most of the valuable time spent in revising. Therefore, tutors often scheduled extra classes to complete their required syllabuses. In addition, extended vacations may create difficulties for working parents by giving extra child care with managing their workload. Shorter holidays will be beneficial for corporate parents and for teachers also.

In conclusion, although long school vacations may develop personal growth and provide opportunities to take rest and spend time with families, I maintain that shorter holidays will be more valuable for both parents and teachers. As it will help to remember what students learn in previous months and also give sufficient time to participate in other co-curricular activities.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The student addresses all parts of the prompt, discussing both the value of long school holidays and the arguments in favour of shorter ones, before stating a clear personal position in the conclusion. The ideas are generally relevant and extended, such as mentioning stress relief, family time, and skill development for the first part, and learning retention issues for the second part. However, some arguments tend to over-generalise or lack deeper specific development. For instance, the point about working parents and child care is introduced but not fully explored. Overall, the response meets the criteria for Band 6.5 or a solid Band 6, as all parts of the task are addressed with relevant ideas, though some areas could be more fully developed.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear paragraph structure. Each paragraph has a distinct focus: introduction, advantages of long holidays, arguments for shorter holidays, and conclusion. Cohesive devices are employed, such as 'Firstly', 'Secondly', 'On the other hand', and 'In conclusion', though some referencing and transitions feel slightly mechanical or repetitive (e.g., 'enough time' repeated multiple times). Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different facets of the prompt. However, referencing is occasionally unclear, such as 'In a response, teachers...' which weakens the logical flow slightly. This performance aligns well with Band 6.0 descriptors for logical organisation and cohesion.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common lexical items such as 'extended vacations', 'personal growth', 'co-curricular activities', and 'educational institutions'. However, there are noticeable word choice and collocation inaccuracies throughout the text, such as 'studies pressure' instead of 'study pressure', 'do volunteer in summer programs' instead of 'volunteer in summer programs', and 'devote their time in different camps' instead of 'devote their time to different camps'. While these errors do not impede communication, they prevent the lexical score from reaching Band 7. The vocabulary is minimally sufficient and appropriate for a Band 6 rating.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The writer uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some control over clause structures (e.g., 'Some believe that extended vacations provide valuable opportunities...'). There are, however, several grammatical errors and punctuation omissions throughout the text. Examples include missing commas after introductory phrases ('On the other hand there are...'), awkward prepositions ('in the favour of' instead of 'in favour of'), and tense/modal verb issues ('tutors often scheduled extra classes' instead of 'schedule'). These errors are frequent enough to detract from grammatical accuracy, though they rarely impede overall communication. This places the response comfortably at Band 6.

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