Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-22
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)
I believe that holidays in students life is more important to make them feel free from educational pressure and spent valuable time with their family members.In modern era,In various nations, primary and secondary schools close for two months or moreover in the summer holidays.
On the one hand long school holidays makes students to be free from exam and notes pressure and at this time they used to play physical games outside with their friends . Firstly, it hepls to develop their communicating skills while interacting and playing physical games . For example , the students who stayed at hostel for their study almost 8 to 10 months they only get 2 months to go their home and spent time with their family. secondly, at holiday time students gets chance to complete their remained Notes and prepared for their upcomming exams.
On the another hand , long school holidays doesnot have only positive impacts it also have negative impacts on students. One impact is they forget their daily routine and can not managed proper time for their study.For instance, when i was in college i got 3 months summer holidays at that time I enjoyed a lot but later i realized that i have forget to follow my daily routine and it disbalanced my whole study.Another negative impact is after that large gap students lose their hand writting skills it is most common among students.
In conclusion, the schools have to change their holidays plan because more holidays negatively impacts on students performance . Sometimes they also make panic to their parents for asking smartphones to spend whole day at holidays.At last i suggest that the student have to utilize their holidays in proper ways.
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 prompt, discussing the value of long school holidays (such as reducing pressure and allowing family time) and the arguments in favour of shorter ones (routine disruption and loss of writing skills). A clear position is maintained throughout the essay. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited and repetitive in places, particularly in the conclusion which introduces a new, weakly related point about parents and smartphones. Examples provided are simple and occasionally rely on personal anecdotes like 'when i was in college'. Overall, the response meets the criteria for Band 6 by addressing all parts of the task with relevant ideas, though some ideas remain under-developed or tangential.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The essay displays a generally coherent overall arrangement with a recognisable introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Paragraphing is utilised, although the indentation and spacing are inconsistent. Cohesive devices such as 'On the one hand', 'Firstly', 'For example', and 'In conclusion' are employed to structure the response, but their usage is occasionally mechanical or faulty, as seen in 'On the another hand'. Referencing is sometimes unclear, and the logical progression between sentences occasionally falters due to abrupt transitions. Paragraphing could be managed more effectively to separate distinct ideas cleanly. These features place the response firmly in the Band 5 to 6 range, leaning towards a Band 6 for attempting a clear logical organisation despite mechanical cohesion.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully communicating everyday concepts. Attempts are made to use less common items such as 'educational pressure', 'communicating skills', and 'negative impacts', but these are occasionally marred by word choice and collocation errors, such as 'remained Notes' instead of remaining notes, 'hand writting skills', and 'disbalanced'. Spelling errors like 'hepls' and 'upcomming' also appear. While communication is not severely impeded, the frequency of lexical inaccuracies prevents the response from achieving a higher band. The vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey the intended meaning, aligning with the Band 5 descriptors.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The writing demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, though attempts at complex structures frequently contain errors. There are frequent grammatical and punctuation issues throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement errors ('long school holidays makes', 'students gets', 'impact is they forget'), missing articles ('in students life', 'at holiday time'), and run-on sentences with improper comma splices. Capitalisation and spacing errors are also prominent ('In modern era,In various nations'). While the meaning is generally decipherable, the high density of grammatical errors means that error-free sentences are not in the majority, fitting the Band 5 profile where frequent errors can cause some difficulty for the reader.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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