Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-29

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 certain countries, primary and secondary schools close for two months or more than that for summer vacations. Although the students can do what ever they want and enjoy a break from daily routine. Holidays will help the childrens to boost there physcial well-being and focus on other co-curricular activites such as swimming, dancing, singing, baking and many more.

On the one hand, two months holidays for students will help them to take a break from hectic schedule of school and enjoy the vacation with friends and family. Holidays will make the students more active and avid, by taking part in different actives which they are interested in. Some of the major outcome of vacations is that students are allowed to enjoy the freedom and think about their personality development in a positive aspact.

Primary students are more keen towards holidays when compared to secondary schools. For instance, they can go to different places such as grandarents house, farmhouse, water parks and many more, which make them feel connected with there family and can also enjoy with cousins.

On the other hand, too many holidays can distract students from studies and cannot focus properly. It will become burden for teachers to complete the task or syllabus on time before exams. Providing more than two months holidays can also have numerous drawbacks such as change of routine, lack of focus, disagrement, lack of development. As primary pupils cannot adapt changes and does not memorize easily it will become hard for the teacher to teach them again from starting.

In conclusion, holidays are imoportant for students to develop there personal and professional lifes. but to many holidays can change the mind of the students.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses both parts of the prompt, discussing the value of long school holidays and the arguments for shorter breaks. However, the development of ideas is limited and somewhat repetitive. For example, the writer mentions that holidays help physical well-being and co-curricular activities, but the elaboration remains general with lists like swimming, dancing, singing, and baking. Similarly, the arguments for shorter holidays touch upon distraction and teacher burden, but these points are underdeveloped and lack clear examples. While a clear position is maintained throughout the essay, the reasoning often lacks depth, pushing the response into the Band 5 to 6 range. Because all parts of the task are addressed with relevant ideas, albeit under-developed, it satisfies the criteria for a Band 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a recognizable introduction, body paragraphs addressing both sides of the argument, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is attempted, though the division between paragraphs is sometimes erratic, such as splitting the first body point into two separate blocks. Cohesive devices are used, but they are frequently mechanical or repetitive, such as relying heavily on phrases like 'On the one hand' and 'On the other hand'. Furthermore, referencing is not always clear, as seen with ambiguous pronouns and disjointed transitions between sentences. While the logical flow is discernible, the lack of smooth progression and occasional faulty cohesion keep this criterion at a Band 5.5.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The student displays an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'co-curricular activities', 'personality development', and 'avid'. However, there are numerous word choice errors, awkward collocations, and spelling mistakes throughout the text, such as 'what ever', 'physcial', 'activites', 'grandarents', 'there' instead of 'their', 'disagrement', 'imoportant', and 'lifes'. These errors occasionally cause slight confusion for the reader, though they do not completely impede communication. The lexical control demonstrates an uneven mastery of word forms and spelling, making Band 5.0 the most accurate descriptor.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The essay exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but attempts at complex structures are frequently faulty or incomplete, such as 'Although the students can do what ever they want and enjoy a break from daily routine.' (which lacks a main clause). There are frequent grammatical errors involving subject-verb agreement, such as 'too many holidays can distract students from studies and cannot focus properly', and misuse of plurals or articles. Punctuation is also inconsistent, particularly with run-on sentences and sentence fragments in the conclusion. These frequent errors cause some difficulty for the reader and restrict the grammatical score to a Band 5.0.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.