Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-24

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)

Many people have conflicting opinions about the summer holidays schedule practiced in the primary and secondary schools. In this task, I'll be explaining the value of the long school holidays, how it plays an important role and why it is crucial for the students.

There are numerous countries all around the globe who practice a summer vacation of two months or more in one year. This practice is pretty common amoung private and public schools since a long era. There are several advantages of two months holidays to student. First and foremost is it gives students a period of time to enjoy their freedom and their days of childhood. As this time of childhood is pretty precious and it's not something one experiences twice.

Another primary reason of two month school holidays is the schooling schedule, most schools follow a 10 month session approach for academics which covers both summer and winter term. The remaining two months are being accomodated in terms of vacation period so students can spend time with their families and make the most of their childhood.

These holidays also plays a significant role in the development of freedom sense in the students. It provide them with a space of creativity, and allows them to discover and invest time in their hobbies. As pursuing hobbies is a crucial part of development of a healthy, joyful and motivated lifestyle.

Although, there are few arguments in favour of shorter holidays which supports the idea of giving less vacations of students. Many argues that rather than giving long vacations to students, students should be offered new subjects/ courses, trainings or skills that will help them in their future.

Keeping this in mind, few schools offers summer camps. These summer camps offers creative subjects, additionally in-door and out-door games are also offered in the summer camps to help the children to unlock their maxmum potential and interests.

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 favor of shorter ones. The writer's position is generally clear, presenting ideas about childhood freedom, family time, and skill development through summer camps. However, some ideas are somewhat repetitive and lack deeper extension, particularly when discussing the schooling schedule and hobbies. While all parts are addressed, the development of ideas tends to over-generalise and lacks more specific supporting examples from personal experience or broader contexts, which places it firmly at a Band 6 level.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction and body paragraphs that move between the two main aspects of the prompt. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate ideas. However, cohesion is at times faulty and mechanical. For instance, transitional phrases like 'First and foremost is it gives' and 'Although, there are few arguments' demonstrate awkward transitions. Referencing is also occasionally unclear, such as the use of 'this practice' and 'this time' without tightly linked antecedents. Overall, the logical progression is present, but mechanical cohesive devices prevent it from reaching a higher band.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms like 'academics', 'development', 'significance', and 'potential'. There are, however, several noticeable lexical and spelling inaccuracies throughout the text, such as 'amoung' instead of 'among', 'accomodated' with a single 'm', and unnatural phrasing like 'development of freedom sense' and 'giving less vacations'. Less common vocabulary is attempted with occasional errors in word choice and collocation, which places this performance at Band 6.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating relative clauses and conditional structures. However, there are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with subject-verb agreement and preposition usage, such as 'two months holidays to student', 'The remaining two months are being accomodated', and 'These holidays also plays'. Punctuation and article usage also exhibit minor flaws. While these errors do not severely impede overall communication, they persist enough to prevent the response from achieving a Band 7.

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