Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-30

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)

School vacations is the most favourable time period of the students, where they can enjoy their quality time with friends and family. Moreover, a long summer holidays, allow students to purssue their extra curricular activities. the following essay will discuss the benefits of long vacations along with parent's arguements for it.

First and foremost, now a days society becoming more competetive, therefore, students getting pressurized for well perfomance in academics. However, school vacations allow students to take some breath and enjoy the quality time with their friends and family. School holidays is the most important factor to maitain a living childhood of the students. Furthermore, a two or more than two month vacation is great time for the students, to develope their skills apart from the studies, in this time they can participate in their favourable game classes, such as a football, cricket, vollyball and many others.

On the other hand, Some parents geeting afraid from long school vacation, they may worried about that, their child may forgot the academic syllabus of previous year. not only, the forgetfulness but also, students are recognized feeling struggle to go to the school after a long vacation. Another argument is students not taking their studies seriously after such long break. They feel laziness, to get back to studies, which drive-ups the poor academic perfomance of the student. Eventually strict parents consider vacation as a time waste of the child.

In conclusion, long school vacation may distract children from the studies. However it has numerous positive outcomes for the students, for instance, development of the skills, enjoy with friends and family, and a bit space from the perfomace pressure, which also encorage student to perform well in upcoming academic standard.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses both parts of the prompt, discussing the value of long holidays (e.g., spending time with family, pursuing extracurricular activities) and the arguments in favour of shorter holidays (e.g., academic regression, difficulty returning to routine). A clear position is maintained throughout the essay. However, some ideas are slightly repetitive or under-developed, such as the discussion on parental concerns and academic performance. The arguments are generally relevant, but the development lacks depth in places, placing it comfortably in the Band 6 territory where all parts are addressed with relevant, though sometimes limited, ideas.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay has a recognisable overall structure with a clear introduction and conclusion, and body paragraphs that separate the two main prompts. Paragraphing is used adequately. However, cohesive devices are sometimes faulty or mechanical, as seen with phrases like 'First and foremost, now a days society becoming more competetive' and awkward transitional openings. Referencing is occasionally unclear, and the logical progression between sentences is sometimes disrupted by grammatical and lexical errors, leading to a Band 5.5 performance overall.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The student attempts some less common vocabulary such as 'extracurricular activities', 'competetive', and 'forgetfulness', but there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors throughout the text. Examples include 'purssue' instead of 'pursue', 'maitain' instead of 'maintain', 'develope' instead of 'develop', 'geeting afraid' instead of 'getting afraid', and 'forgot' instead of 'forget'. These frequent lexical errors cause some difficulty for the reader, though the vocabulary remains minimally adequate for the task, corresponding to a Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but control is weak. There are frequent grammatical and punctuation errors that occasionally impede communication. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues like 'School vacations is', missing articles or incorrect structures such as 'students getting pressurized', 'students not taking their studies seriously', and 'They feel laziness'. Punctuation is also problematic, particularly with comma splices and unnecessary commas separating subjects from verbs. This profile matches Band 5.0 descriptors.

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