Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-06

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)

In a large number of countries, summer break symbolizes a long two month holiday for primary and secondary schools. While some people argue it is needed to help students reset after a long academic year, it is widely believed that such a long break can put students off track.

During the academic year, students go through a series of assignments, quizzes and exams, hence they need at least two months to recover from the mental toll. It allows them to reset mentally and feel more relaxed, ready for new challenges in the next term. For example, it has widely been found that students are much more motivated to go back to school after a long time away from it. Furthermore, a long break allows students to spend quality time with their loved ones. In today's hectic lives, parents are not able to spend enough time with their children. The summer break allows them to bond together and even go on long vacations with them. Although there maybe some drawbacks with such long breaks.

Staying away from school for so long, can make the students a little rusty. Initially they may start lagging behind in the academic term as they try and get upto pace. Due to this, the academic burden could start piling up on them leading to reduced performance. It is also argued that a reduced summer break allows teachers to cover more academic syllabus during the term. This will allow students to learn more and progress forward quicker. While the problems associated with long school breaks are noticeable, with the right steps they can be resolved.

Teachers should give homework to be completed across the summer break, they should set timelines to complete the homework during different weeks of the break. This way students will not be completely blank when they return to school. Also school's should conduct fun summer camps which can aid student learning, this way they will remain connected to school.

In conclusion, people may have reservations for long summer breaks, but the benefits outweigh the problems. The issues can easliy be overcome with the right steps taken by schools and teachers, such as summer homework and bootcamps. The students on the other hand can continue to enjoy their break while remaining associated with school.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

Your essay successfully addresses all parts of the prompt by discussing both the value of long school holidays and the arguments in favour of shorter ones, giving a clear position. You cover relevant ideas for both sides, such as mental recovery and family bonding for long breaks, alongside academic progression and avoiding learning loss for shorter ones. However, some ideas are more fully developed than others; for instance, the point about teachers covering more syllabus during the term is introduced but lacks a concrete example or deep extension. To reach a higher band, you need to ensure that every main idea is thoroughly supported with extended explanations and fully elaborated examples rather than brief mentions.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

Your essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear logical progression from introduction to body paragraphs and a concluding summary. You use standard cohesive devices like 'Furthermore', 'Although', and 'In conclusion' to link your ideas together, which fits well with the requirements for this band level. However, referencing and cohesion can sometimes feel a bit mechanical, and paragraphing could be tighter; for example, the sentence 'Although there maybe some drawbacks with such long breaks' is left standing as a single, grammatically incomplete sentence fragment rather than being seamlessly integrated into the preceding paragraph. To improve further, ensure smoother transitions between sentences and avoid isolated clauses.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items and phrasing such as 'mental toll', 'hectic lives', and 'academic burden'. Communication is clear throughout the text. Nevertheless, there are some inaccuracies in word choice and spelling, such as writing 'upto' instead of 'up to', 'easliy' instead of 'easily', and the misuse of 'academic syllabus' where 'curriculum' or simply 'syllabus' without the adjective would be more natural. To achieve a higher lexical band, you should work on precision in word choice, better control over collocations, and eliminating minor spelling slips.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

Your writing shows a workable mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating your ability to handle conditional structures and subordinate clauses such as 'While some people argue...'. You also control punctuation reasonably well overall. However, there are some noticeable grammar and punctuation errors that hold your writing back. For example, there is a comma splice and misuse of a fragment in 'Staying away from school for so long, can make the students a little rusty' (unnecessary comma separating subject and verb) and a comma splice/run-in issue with 'Also school's should conduct...' where an apostrophe is incorrectly used for a plural noun. To reach a higher band, you must increase the proportion of error-free complex sentences and ensure accurate punctuation and subject-verb agreement.

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