Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-30

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 many countries, primary and secondary schools close for two or months in the summer holidays and it's a good initative from the school committees.

Value of long school holidays are very effective for the bright students as they can prepare themselves for upcoming exams and have a good grip on their curriculam. Teachers provide homework to students and its more than enough for 2 to 3 months, which help the students to improve their skills in their subjects. Many parents admit their children to different institutes like for hand writing improvement, some goes for singing classes. These activites help children's grooming and make them skillfull. In my school holidays i applied for football academy, which helped me to play till district level. So i think school must have long school holidays so students can benefit from it. Long school holidays can allow students to practice their weakpoints and improve it.

I personally do not agree with shorter school holidays but majority of parents discourage long holidays because they think long holidays will make thier children comfortable and that comfort can make them lazy and remove the williingness of working hard. I partially agree with this point as children who're not good in studies get an opportunity to not do their school work. Secondly some students discourage long holidays because they get bored in their homes and i think only those students get bored whodoesn't have extra curricular activities and doesn't play any sports or video games. So in short there aren't much debatable arguements which prove any pessimistic views regarding shorter school holidays.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both questions: you explain that long holidays can support exam preparation, subject practice and activities such as football, and you present concerns that extended breaks may encourage laziness or boredom. The personal example about reaching district level makes one benefit concrete. However, the discussion is uneven: the value of long holidays receives several examples, while the case for shorter holidays is mostly reported as parents’ concerns rather than explained with clear reasons or evidence. Your position is also not fully consistent: you say you do not agree with shorter holidays, then conclude that there are few arguments against them. Develop the shorter-holiday case and clarify your own view throughout. The response meets the length requirement; 10 words copied from the task prompt were not counted.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The response has a basic overall structure, with one paragraph on the benefits of long holidays and another on objections, and the sequence within the first paragraph is generally understandable. Linking expressions such as “Secondly” and “So in short” help signal movement between points. However, progression is limited: several benefits are listed one after another without being grouped or clearly connected, and the second paragraph shifts between your opinion, parents’ views and students’ boredom. Some links are awkward or unclear, particularly “So in short there aren't much debatable arguments,” which does not clearly follow from the preceding points. Use a clearer introduction, separate the two sides into focused paragraphs, and make each concluding sentence directly summarise its paragraph’s main idea.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “upcoming exams,” “extra curricular activities,” “football academy” and “district level.” There are also attempts at more specific expressions such as “grip on their curriculum” and “students’ grooming.” However, spelling and word-choice errors are noticeable, including “initative,” “curriculam,” “skillfull,” “weakpoints” and “williingness.” Some phrases are also unnatural or imprecise: “admit their children to different institutes” and “remove the willingness of working hard” do not express the intended ideas naturally. Build accuracy by checking spelling and learning common collocations, such as “enrol children in classes” and “lose motivation to work hard.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentences, including clauses with “as,” “because” and “which,” so the response is not limited to short statements. However, complex structures are often faulty, and errors recur in agreement, articles, verb forms and sentence construction. For example, “Value of long school holidays are” has a subject–verb agreement problem, while “which help the students” does not agree with the singular noun “homework.” In “only those students get bored whodoesn't have,” the relative clause has incorrect spacing and verb agreement. The final sentence, “Long school holidays can allow students to practice their weakpoints and improve it,” also has unclear pronoun reference. Practise checking each sentence’s subject, verb and pronoun reference, and use punctuation to separate complete ideas.

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