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)

Across the world, many educational sectors close for more than two months as summer holidays. Long summer vacations has a great impact on students mental health. These holidays can be reduce to one month so that, children can easily cover their curriculum.

Firstly, students have to carry the burden of studies for the whole year. They need a break of one to two months, in which they focus on other activities. Many children plan to learn a new skill or visit their grandparents. For instance, various families wait for their kids summer breaks to visit a foreign country. They need maximum time to explore the country and fully unwind the stress. Secondly, In few countries summer season is sizzling, sometimes it become difficult for teenagers to attend school. For example, this summer due to heat waves, many death cases were reported in Italy and Japan. Thirdly, young students easily fed-up with the same routine, its important for them to take a break from studies and then again join school with fresh mind.

Furthermore, long summer holidays are not beneficial in different ways, as many individuals lost interest in studies. They feel difficult to change their routine, and join the school again. For instance, many youngsters develop a habit of night owl and slept the whole day. it's become difficult for them to wakeup at 7 am for school. In addition, in many states during summer vacations, teachers salaries become half and it becomes difficult to survive in that amount.

In conclusion, Long summer vacations are healthy to develop a new skill or spend plenty of time with family but it also effect the routine of students and effects teachers wage.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses both parts of the prompt, discussing both the value of long school holidays and the arguments in favour of shorter ones. The writer presents a clear position throughout the essay. Ideas are generally relevant, such as the benefits of breaks for mental health, learning new skills, and coping with extreme weather, alongside the drawbacks regarding disrupted routines and teacher salaries. However, some arguments are slightly under-developed and lack extension. For instance, the point regarding teacher salaries is introduced briefly without much elaboration. Nevertheless, all parts of the prompt are covered, and the main ideas are supported with examples, placing this response at Band 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement and logical progression, using cohesive devices such as 'Firstly', 'Secondly', 'Furthermore', and 'In conclusion' to structure the response. Paragraphing is utilised, separating the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion adequately. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical. For example, sentences within paragraphs can feel disjointed due to abrupt transitions or punctuation errors, such as in 'Secondly, In few countries...', and referencing pronouns like 'They' can occasionally be ambiguous. Overall, the organisational structure is clear enough to earn a Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'curriculum', 'unwind', 'sizzling', and 'heat waves'. However, there are noticeable word choice and collocation errors throughout the text, such as 'vacations has a great impact', 'death cases were reported', and 'teachers salaries become half'. Additionally, spelling and word form errors occur, such as 'fed-up' and 'slept' instead of 'sleep'. These inaccuracies do not impede overall communication, but they restrict the lexical score to Band 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating relative clauses and conditional structures. However, there are frequent grammatical errors in tense, subject-verb agreement, and articles. Examples include 'Long summer vacations has a great impact' (subject-verb agreement), 'can be reduce' (passive voice error), 'its important' (missing apostrophe), and 'it's become difficult for them to wakeup' (tense consistency). Punctuation errors also appear across the response. Because these errors persist and occur frequently throughout the text, the performance aligns best with Band 5.0.

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

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