Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · 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 5.0)

In nations, it is primary practice of primary and secondary institutions to shut down for a period of two to three months during the summer. This essay will explore the developmental benefits of extented breaks for students before examining the arguments supporting the implementation of duration holidays.

The primary value for longer holidays lies in the mental restoration of students and the oppertunities they provide for holistic and non academic developments.Academics can stressful and prolonged breaks allow childrens to relax, reducing burnout and restoring their enthusiasm for learning. Futhermore childrens can be able to spend some time with their families , travel and take part in extracuriculam activities like sports. It is very beneficial for students. which are difficilt to accomidate in day-to-day school schedule.

On the other hand compelling arguments in favor of shorter shcool holidays which can be the academic retentions and parental convenience. After the longer holidays students can forget the fundamentals of learning like they can forget thier mathematicals questions

concepts. Teachers should focus on the previous syllabus for few weeks after summer break.Aditionally, long holidays can be a burden of financial for parents specially who they doing jobs, who must fund for childcare arrangements.

To conclude that longer holidays can beneficial for exaustion students for academic, shorter holidays the distinct benefits.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The student addresses all parts of the prompt by discussing both the value of long school holidays and the arguments in favour of shorter ones, as evidenced by sections exploring developmental benefits alongside academic retention and parental convenience. However, ideas are sometimes under-developed and lack sufficient supporting examples. Furthermore, the response suffers from a significant length penalty, as it contains only 216 words, failing to meet the minimum requirement of 250 words. This under-length constraint heavily restricts the depth of task fulfilment, pulling the overall task achievement score down into the lower-middle range. To improve, the writer must ensure they write at least 250 words and expand their supporting points with detailed, concrete examples.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay is organised into clear paragraphs, starting with an introduction, moving to body paragraphs covering both sides of the debate, and ending with a brief conclusion. However, overall progression is somewhat hampered by repetitive sentence structures and limited cohesive devices. While transitional markers such as 'Furthermore' and 'On the other hand' are attempted, referencing and transitions are at times faulty or mechanical, as seen in the final incomplete conclusion sentence ('To conclude that longer holidays can beneficial for exaustion students for academic, shorter holidays the distinct benefits.'). Paragraphing is present and generally attempts to separate main ideas, but internal logical flow requires better control and smoother transitions to achieve a higher band score.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for the task, attempting some less common lexical items such as 'mental restoration', 'holistic', and 'extracuriculam activities'. However, there are numerous noticeable spelling and word-choice errors throughout the text, including 'extented' instead of extended, 'oppertunities' instead of opportunities, 'non academic' instead of non-academic, 'archived' or 'accomidate', 'Futhermore', and 'exaustion' instead of exhausted. Additionally, collocation and word forms are frequently awkward, such as 'duration holidays' and 'burden of financial'. While the meaning is generally clear despite these errors, the density of lexical inaccuracies keeps the score at the Band 5 level.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, incorporating relative clauses and subordinate conjunctions (e.g., 'This essay will explore... before examining...'). However, grammatical control is weak, with frequent errors in basic sentence construction, articles, and word forms. Examples include 'Academics can stressful' (missing verb), 'childrens' (incorrect plural form used repeatedly), 'Futhermore childrens can be able to spend' (redundant modals), and 'who they doing jobs' (clunky and ungrammatical relative clause). Punctuation errors are also present, such as a stray full stop followed by a stray fragment ('It is very beneficial for students. which are difficilt'). These frequent errors can cause some difficulty for the reader.

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