Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-11-04

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)

While long school holidays traditionally provide students and teachers with essential rest and opportunities for holistic personal development, they can also lead to learning loss and place significant financial and logistial burdens on working families, prompting strong arguments for shorter, more frequent breaks. In my opinion, i partly agree with shortening summer holidays. Two months is too long because students forget what they learned. However, making the holiday too short is also bad because children need time to rest and play. A middle ground is the best solution.

On the one hand, the first and foremost reason why schools should provide long holidays is that children can rest. To be specific, the schools are stressfull, and a long break lets kids fully relaxed. Another perk of this trend is that children can give timeto their hobbies. For example, there are many things out of schools such as, cricket, badminton, singing, or dancing. Furthermore, if schools provides long time holidays, then students can make trips with their family or friends to spend time with them, or they can do part time jobs to learn about real life experience.

On the other hand, the negatives of this phenomenon is that students may be forgetting lessons. For instance, students forgot what they learned. As a result, teachers must teach old topics again after holidays. In addition, children should get boredoom and increase their screen-time, as in holidays childern are literally free and they do not have a work to do except watching television and boredoom.

In conclusion, both sides have strong points, but a balanced approach is best. While long summer holidays give children valuable time to rest and play, they also cause students to forget their lessons and create problems for working parents. Therefore, shortening the summer break and spreading shorter holidays throughout the year is the most sensible solution because it helps both education and family life.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

You address both questions and maintain a clear position: you favour a middle ground, with shorter summer breaks balanced by time to rest. The value of long holidays is supported with relevant points about hobbies, family trips and part-time work, while the case for shorter holidays includes students forgetting lessons and teachers needing to review material. The opening and conclusion also connect the discussion to working families. However, some points are asserted rather than explained: for example, the claim that children become bored and spend more time on screens would benefit from a clearer link to shorter holidays, and the effect on working parents is mentioned but not developed in the body. More specific explanation or an example would make the response more fully developed.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.0

The response has a clear overall structure, moving from an introduction to the benefits of long holidays, the case for shorter breaks, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is appropriate, and signposts such as “On the one hand,” “On the other hand,” and “In conclusion” make the progression easy to follow. The final recommendation also follows logically from the discussion. To strengthen cohesion further, make the relationship between ideas more explicit within paragraphs. For instance, the sentence about children becoming bored and increasing screen time is not clearly connected to the argument for shorter holidays. Some transitions are formulaic, and the list of activities could be integrated more smoothly into the explanation.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use an adequate range of vocabulary for the topic, including phrases such as “holistic personal development,” “learning loss,” “financial burdens,” and “balanced approach.” These help communicate the main ideas, and the meaning is generally clear. However, several spelling and word-choice errors reduce precision, including “logistial,” “stressfull,” “boredoom,” and “childern.” Some expressions are also unnatural or imprecise, such as “give time to their hobbies,” “make trips,” and “learn about real life experience.” Aim to use more natural collocations and check spelling carefully. For example, “pursue their hobbies,” “take trips,” and “gain practical experience” would express these ideas more accurately.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt both simple and complex sentence forms, including a clear contrast in “While long summer holidays give children valuable time to rest and play, they also cause students to forget their lessons.” Most ideas remain understandable, but some grammatical errors occur in verb forms, agreement, and sentence construction. Examples include “lets kids fully relaxed” (which needs a verb form such as “lets kids fully relax”), “schools provides,” and “the negatives … is.” The sentence beginning “In addition, children should get…” also has an unclear grammatical relationship between its clauses. Review subject–verb agreement and verb patterns, and proofread each sentence for a complete, correctly formed structure. Greater accuracy would make your varied sentences more effective.

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