Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-20

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 5.5)

In most of the countries, primary and secoundary schools remains close for many months for the enjoyment of the students in summer holidays. In my perspective summer holidays are beneficial for the students, they have stay for so long in the schools for study and only getting a break of almost 20 minutes.

Increasing summer holidays put positive impact on students life,there are alot of benefits of taking a long school holidays, students will get plenty of time for their activities, they can spend quality times with their loved ones. Students have burden of studies on them, and usually spend 8 hours in the classroom, so for the relaxation of mind, trip to northern areas can be a planned.

Long holidays can effect the study circle of the childrens, by involving their mind more on playing except of their studies. Summer worksheets will be given to each children to practice their work at home, parents need to check their childrens worksheet assesments, to get a idea they are not loosing their skills regarding studies. For example, a research was made by scientist named ahmed iqbal, in which it clearly predicts the narrative about the childrens long holidays, they loos their ability to learn while geeting free and involved in other activities, in a comparison with those students going to school.

I firmly believed that childrens need to work on their learning habbits while being on long holidays. An affective way of time management will be made by them for studies, in this way they can play their games and also study at the same day.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both sides of the question to some extent: you explain that long holidays allow students to relax, pursue activities and spend time with family, and you mention the concern that learning may suffer. However, the value of long holidays receives much more attention than the arguments for shorter holidays. The discussion of shorter breaks is mostly implied through worksheets and the claim that children may lose learning ability; it does not clearly explain why shorter holidays would be preferable, such as maintaining learning routines or reducing the need for revision. Your position is present, but it shifts from saying long holidays are beneficial to stressing that children should study during them. Develop both parts more evenly and support the comparison with clearer, relevant examples.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a basic paragraph structure, moving from an introduction to benefits, possible learning drawbacks and a concluding recommendation. This gives the reader some sense of organisation. However, progression between the ideas is not always clear: the paragraph beginning “Long holidays can effect the study circle” moves from a concern about learning to worksheets, parental checking and a research claim without clearly connecting these points. Linking phrases such as “For example” and “in this way” are used, but some connections feel mechanical or do not make the relationship between ideas precise. The conclusion also introduces time management without fully resolving the comparison in the question. Use clearer topic sentences and organise the response into distinct arguments for long and shorter holidays.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some vocabulary relevant to the topic, including “relaxation of mind,” “quality times,” “burden of studies” and “time management.” These choices communicate the general subject, but the range is limited and several word choices or collocations are inaccurate, sometimes making the meaning less clear. For instance, “effect the study circle” does not express the intended impact on learning, and “they loos their ability to learn” contains a spelling error and an imprecise phrase. There are also repeated forms such as “children” and “holidays,” while “secoundary,” “alot” and “geeting” show spelling control needs attention. Build a more precise range for discussing learning, wellbeing and school schedules, and check spelling and natural word combinations.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and longer sentence forms, including a sentence explaining that students can spend time on activities and with loved ones. However, control is inconsistent, and errors in agreement, verb forms, articles, plurals and sentence boundaries occur frequently enough to make some sentences difficult to follow. For example, “schools remains close” has a subject–verb agreement problem, while “they have stay for so long” uses an incorrect verb form. The opening also joins two complete ideas with a comma, and “parents need to check their childrens worksheet assesments” has unclear grammatical relationships and missing possessive marking. Practise building accurate simple sentences first, then combine them with subordinate clauses, checking agreement, verb forms and punctuation.

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.