Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-20

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)

There always has been a debate whether the school summer holidays should be for a long time or short interval.Overall holidays are important in an student's life to keep an equilbrium between the studies and daily life activities,but being distant from studies for a long time can have several negative impacts on psychological and behavorial abilities.The following discussion come up with an integrated approach to overcome these artefacts.

Humans are more adaptable towards their comfort zone as they tend to stay leisure and can be distracted by several factors such as games, drugs.

There are certain possibilities for an idle student to fall towards some addiction which can ruin their intelluctual abilities.According to several psychological theories it becomes difficult for an individual to overcome his routine if it last for long term.For instance, stating my own example i was graduated in july 2025, it's been a year for me being distant from studies and now i have to give my ielts exam because of that gap i took limited my language skills as i was getting comfortable wth my leisure routine.

On contrary, holidays are also important for a student or an individual to keep him engaged,motivated towards the assigned task.It is human tendency to get bored from a activity being carried on regular basis.Furthermore a break from the regular routine is essential to maintain work-life balance as a short term break sometimes is sufficent to warm up the actual abilties of an individual and it can assist achieving the optimum task level as well.

In a nutshell there must be a balanced approach to plan holidays for schools summers in a way that students either don't get a long gap from studies or short enough holidays that education doesn't sound like a burden to them.As this systematic approach wil help students to relieve their educational stress and stay motivated towards studies simultaneously.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the value of long school holidays and the arguments in favour of shorter ones, while maintaining a clear stance throughout. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited and lacks depth in places. For example, the mention of distractions like 'games, drugs' is stated rather abruptly without sufficient elaboration, and the personal example provided about graduating in July 2025 is slightly confusing and anecdotal. While the ideas are relevant, they tend to be generalized or under-developed, particularly when exploring the psychological impacts. Therefore, the response aligns best with the Band 6 descriptors, as it addresses all parts of the prompt but contains some underdeveloped sections.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement and a clear progression of ideas from the introduction through the body paragraphs to the conclusion. Paragraphing is used to separate distinct points, such as the discussion on the negative impacts of long breaks versus the benefits of breaks in general. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or faulty. For instance, the transition 'On contrary,' contains a grammatical slip (missing 'the'), and referencing across sentences is occasionally unclear, as seen with pronoun usage and abrupt shifts between ideas. Additionally, some cohesive devices feel slightly forced. These features position the response securely at Band 6, where cohesion is apparent but occasionally faulty or mechanical.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common lexical items such as 'equilibrium', 'psychological theories', and 'work-life balance'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors throughout the text, including 'equilbrium', 'behavorial', 'intelluctual', and 'wth'. The phrase 'come up with an integrated approach' is slightly unnatural in this academic context. While communication is not impeded by these inaccuracies, the frequency of spelling and collocation errors prevents the response from reaching a higher band. The lexical resource demonstrated matches the Band 6 descriptor, reflecting an adequate range with some attempts at less common vocabulary accompanied by noticeable errors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The writer employs a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some capability to construct longer sentences, such as 'Furthermore a break from the regular routine is essential to maintain work-life balance as a short term break sometimes is sufficent to warm up the actual abilties of an individual.' Nevertheless, there are frequent errors in grammar and punctuation, including missing articles ('an student', 'on contrary', 'achieving optimum task level'), punctuation omissions, and run-on structures. Although these errors do not severely impede communication, they occur regularly and impact the overall fluency of the text. This performance corresponds to a Band 6, characterised by a mix of sentence structures and persistent errors in grammar and punctuation.

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