Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-14
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 6.0)
In the contemporary society schools vacation plays a paramount of important. However, primary and secondary schools are close for almost two months in the summer break. From my perspective, long holidays provide students with an opportunity to learn new skills and get relax for sometime, many of the individuals argue that shorter holidays would be more beneficial for their esucation. this essay will discuss both views.
To commence with, long school holidays are crucial for learners as they need sufficient time to recover from the pressure of academic studies. During the school year, they have to attend regular classes, assignment, and tuitions, which can be mentally exhausting this may facilitate them to get relaxation and return to school feeling freshed and motivated. Furthermore, students can utilise this time to participate in extracurricular activities, such as sports, travelling as well as develop new skills for better career. These experiences can improve their confidence, creativity and social skills.
On the flip side, there are strong arguments in favour of shorter school vacations. One of the major concern is that students becomes nonchalant because they may forget the information and basic knowledge learned in their academic year if they spend more time away from their studies. Moreover, emerging technology impacts on the students very negatively as most of the children spend leisure time on the social media where they play games, chatting with friends but sometime it may cause cybercrime when some fraudent manipulate them in their talks.
For instance, students who rely too heavily on AI and lose opportunity to make future better.
In the conclusion, although long holidays are valuable for students mental well-being and personal development, shorter holidays with regular breaks are more reliable for school going people leading to maintain usual study habits and to alleviate learning loss.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 6.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 6.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 6.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0
The response addresses both questions and presents a clear overall view: long holidays support rest and personal development, while shorter breaks may help students retain learning and maintain study habits. Relevant explanations include the pressure of schoolwork and opportunities to develop confidence and social skills. However, some points are less fully developed than others. The argument that students forget what they have learned is relevant but would benefit from a specific example or explanation of how shorter breaks prevent this. The discussion of technology and cybercrime is less clearly connected to the case for shorter holidays, and the AI example is difficult to interpret. Clarifying this link and supporting the main arguments more evenly would make the response more complete.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0
The essay has a coherent overall structure, with an introduction, separate paragraphs for the two perspectives, and a conclusion that states a preference for shorter holidays with regular breaks. Signposting such as “To commence with,” “On the flip side,” and “In the conclusion” helps readers follow the broad progression. However, some connections between ideas are unclear or mechanical. In the first paragraph, the shift from relaxation to the opposing view is crowded into one sentence, while the technology and cybercrime discussion does not clearly lead to the AI example. Improve progression by giving each paragraph a clear central point, using linking phrases to show cause and contrast, and making references such as “them” and “it” unambiguous.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The response uses a relevant range of vocabulary, including “mentally exhausting,” “extracurricular activities,” “personal development,” and “learning loss.” These choices help express the main ideas and show attempts to use topic-specific language. However, inaccurate word choice, collocation, and spelling sometimes make the meaning less natural or precise. For example, “a paramount of important” and “students becomes nonchalant” do not convey the intended ideas clearly; “fraudent” is also misspelled, and “reliable” is not the most suitable description of shorter holidays. Aim for accurate, natural combinations and check spelling carefully. More precise vocabulary for the technology point would also help explain its relevance to school breaks.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5
There is a mix of simple and more complex sentence forms, including clauses introduced by “as,” “because,” and “although.” This allows the writer to explain reasons and contrast the two positions, and the overall meaning is generally understandable. Some grammatical errors remain, particularly with agreement, articles, plurals, and sentence boundaries. For example, “schools vacation plays” has a subject–verb agreement problem, while “students becomes” should use a plural verb. The sentence beginning “During the school year” runs two independent ideas together without suitable punctuation, and “students mental well-being” needs a possessive form. Review agreement and punctuation, and edit longer sentences to ensure each clause is correctly connected.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.