Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-02

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 6.5)

Psychology says required amount of breaks between educational levels help students recover better which increases their productivity. Majority of the primary and secondary schools around the world have a two or more months manditory summer vacation which offers a lot of positive and negative impacts on the students.

Long summer break which starts right after the end examinations offer not just physical and mental relaxation to the students but also avoids them from not feeling fatigue towards studies. The free time gives them oppurtunities to learn extracurricular activities like sports and arts. Furthermore, the holidays give them enough time to spend with families and relatives while also working on their hobbies and other activities. These activites are necessary becasue they improve the skills of the chidren and enchance important behavioral and social skills in them which may not always be acquired in classrooms. Moreover, long holidays help children in unconventional ways of learning through online and practical classes for music, arts and other special skills like language and science camps.

Conversely, a lot of arguments are in favour of shorter holidays as well. Many individuals argue that shorter holidays help the students retain their subject quickly, which can be a problem with long vacations. In several cases, parents have to spend money to compensate the unchecked free time with private classes or summer camps to keep the children stay productive and updated with their knowledge. Moreover, students from different economic backgrounds may not afford these special classes causing them to fall behind when the school starts. However, a shorter holiday plan can benefit all the students in staying consistent with their education plan.

In conclusion, although longer summer breaks give students enough time to pursue other essential activities, shorter holidays helps them stay more focused on the subject and retain knowledge easily. Therefore I believe more frequent shorter breaks can be benificial for students with both their academics and enough time to relax.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the value of long school holidays and the arguments in favour of shorter ones, maintaining a clear position throughout. Ideas are generally relevant, such as mentioning extracurricular activities and the retention of academic knowledge. However, some ideas are a little under-developed or lack full elaboration. For instance, the point regarding economic backgrounds and special classes is introduced but not thoroughly explored. To reach the next level, all main ideas would need to be fully extended and supported with deeper explanations and more specific examples.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear logical progression from introduction to body paragraphs and a concluding summary. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas, with each body paragraph focusing on a central theme. Cohesive devices such as 'Furthermore', 'Moreover', and 'Conversely' are employed to guide the reader through the arguments, though referencing and linking occasionally feel slightly mechanical or repetitive in structure. To achieve a higher band, the transitions between sentences and paragraphs would need to be smoother, demonstrating more flexible and natural cohesion without relying on standard transitional formulas.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common items such as 'extracurricular', 'unconventional', and 'compensate'. However, there are some noticeable spelling and word choice errors that prevent a higher score, such as 'manditory', 'oppurtunities', 'activites', 'becasue', 'enhance' (spelled 'enchance'), and 'benificial'. Collocations are occasionally awkward, such as 'retain their subject quickly' instead of retaining knowledge or information. These errors do not impede communication, but they highlight the need for greater precision and stronger spelling control when using less common lexical items.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The essay displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating an ability to construct multi-clause sentences such as 'The free time gives them oppurtunities to learn extracurricular activities like sports and arts.' There are several grammatical and punctuation errors present, including subject-verb agreement issues like 'required amount of breaks... help', missing articles, and awkward prepositional phrases such as 'students with both their academics and enough time'. While these errors occur regularly throughout the text, they rarely impede overall communication. To move higher, the writer would need to produce a higher proportion of error-free sentences and demonstrate tighter control over complex grammatical structures.

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