Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

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

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 many nations, schools close for a long summer break lasting two months or more. While the extended time off has several benefits, there are also strong argument in favour of shortening these holidays.

Long summer holidays offer valuable opprtunites for the students and familes, First, children get a much-needed break from the academic stress and daily pressure. This allows them to rest, relax and recover their energy for next school year. Second, long breaks give students the chance to travel, learn new hobbies or spend a good quality of time with family. For instance, children can attend sumer camps or explore nature, which helps them develop important social and life skills out side the classroom.

On the other hand, there are good resoans to support shorter school holdiays. One major arguments is that summer slide, a phenomenon where students forget a significant proportion of what they learned during the previous year. When school reopen, teachers have to waste valuable weeks reviewing old materials instead of teaching new topics. Furthermore, long holidays also hamper students discipline, can create childcare difficulties for working parents, who often struggle to find or afford supervision for children while they are at work.

In conclusion, although long summer breaks are beneficial for rest and personal growth, shorter holiday can help maintain academic progress and slove childcare problems for working families. A balanced school calender with shorter, more frequent breaks might be better solutions for everyone, students can get relief from academic stress also know about the nature, culture. This is the best way to teach them some extra activities.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

You address both parts of the question and present a clear overall view: long holidays support rest and personal growth, while shorter breaks may protect learning and help working parents. Relevant examples, such as summer camps and teachers reviewing material after the break, make the discussion concrete. This meets the core requirements well. However, some points are more fully explained than others: the benefits of family time and personal development are listed, but their value is not explored in much depth. The final suggestion of shorter, more frequent breaks is useful, yet the closing comments about learning about nature and culture and doing extra activities are unclear and not fully connected to that proposal. Develop each main idea with a clearer explanation or example to make the response more consistently complete.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.0

The response has a clear overall progression: an introduction, a paragraph on the value of long holidays, a paragraph supporting shorter holidays, and a conclusion. The signposts “First,” “Second,” and “On the other hand” help readers follow the comparison, and the main ideas are grouped appropriately. This is a strong organisational foundation. Some connections are less smooth, particularly in the conclusion, where the recommendation is followed by several loosely linked points about relief from stress, nature, culture, and extra activities. The sentence beginning “A balanced school calendar…” would be clearer if the recommendation and its reasons were separated and linked explicitly. Continue using this paragraph structure, while making transitions between supporting points more precise and avoiding a list-like ending.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use an adequate range of vocabulary for the topic, including relevant expressions such as “academic stress,” “life skills,” “summer slide,” and “childcare difficulties.” These choices help communicate the main arguments, and some topic-specific language adds precision. However, spelling and word-choice errors occur in several places, including “opprtunites,” “familes,” “sumer,” “resoans,” and “holdiays.” There are also awkward collocations, such as “a good quality of time” and “hamper students discipline,” which reduce naturalness. Aim to check spelling carefully and learn common word partnerships as complete phrases. More accurate use of vocabulary would make the argument sound clearer and more fluent without requiring unnecessarily complex words.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt a mix of simple and complex structures, including a contrast clause in “While the extended time off has several benefits…” and a relative clause describing summer camps. Most of the argument remains understandable, but some grammatical errors affect accuracy. For example, “there are also strong argument” needs plural agreement, and “When school reopen” needs a plural subject and matching verb form. The final sentence, “A balanced school calendar… might be better solutions for everyone,” also has a subject–complement agreement problem and combines several ideas without clear sentence boundaries. Review agreement, articles, and punctuation, especially when joining multiple clauses. Building on your existing complex sentences with more careful editing will improve control.

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