Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-28

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 many nations schools give summer holidays two months or more, some people say that it is good, while other argure lesser school vacations are better. I believe that long holidays are better, but not too long.

Overall, the major advantage of having more holidays give students to learn new skills, and to spend time with family, friends and explore new places, in holidays we can try to learn new skills thar are not the part of school life like learning swimming which takes atleast 30 to 40 days to learn, which make holidays a prefect time for this, furthermore during school we have less time to speng withour families, frienga and play with them, so during summer we can fill that gaps and maintail a healthy connections and see new places like going on vacations.

Some of the disadvantage of having long breaks, it make childern to lose focus on the subject and make them lazy to restart it after the holidays, in addition not all parents have free time to spend whole day with their children, so working parents need to return to work and they spent most of the day in office which makes children feel lonely sometimes and it can become burden on the parents at some point.

In conclusion, while having summer vacation is good in many ways, learning new skill spending quality time with family and friends, but long vacations which are not good for students future and their concentration on studies and also for the working parents, i believe, on balance, having enough holidays where both students and parents can manage is better.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

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's position is clear throughout, advocating for long holidays that are not excessively prolonged. Ideas are relevant, such as learning new skills, spending time with family, and the drawbacks regarding loss of focus and challenges for working parents. However, the development of ideas tends to be repetitive and lacks specific examples or further extension, characteristic of a Band 6. For instance, the point about learning swimming is mentioned but not fully elaborated, and the discussion on working parents is somewhat generalized. Despite these limitations, the prompt is adequately answered.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The response has a discernible overall arrangement with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. However, cohesion is heavily impacted by run-on sentences and a lack of proper punctuation. For example, the entire second paragraph consists of just two massive, comma-spliced sentences ('Overall, the major advantage... and see new places like going on vacations.'). Paragraphing is attempted, but internal cohesion is faulty and mechanical. Referencing and conjunctions are overused or misused to link disparate clauses. Progression is hindered by these structural flow issues, making the text somewhat difficult to follow in places, placing it firmly at Band 5.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The lexical resource is limited and adequate for the task, qualifying for a Band 5. The student uses basic vocabulary repetitively (e.g., 'new skills', 'holidays', 'spend time'). There are noticeable spelling and word choice errors throughout the text, such as 'argure' instead of argue, 'thar' instead of that, 'speng' instead of spend, 'withour' instead of without, 'frienag' instead of friends, 'maintail' instead of maintain, and 'childern' instead of children. These errors cause some difficulty for the reader and demonstrate a lack of control over less common lexical items.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer attempts complex sentence structures, but these attempts are frequently faulty, characterized by major run-on sentences, comma splices, and a severe lack of terminal punctuation. For instance, the third paragraph is a single lengthy sentence containing multiple clauses strung together with commas ('Some of the disadvantage... at some point.'). Grammatical errors are frequent, including subject-verb agreement issues ('holiday give students to learn', 'it make childern to lose') and missing prepositions. The range of structures is limited by the chaotic punctuation and pervasive syntactic errors, which frequently strain the reader's comprehension, justifying a Band 5.

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