Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-11-05

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Smoking can cause serious illnesses and should be made illegal.

To what extent do you agree?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Smoking is consodered as one of the most spreaded behaviors in the world.It is debated that smoking should be made illegal due to its negative effects on peoples' health. For me, I totally disagree with this opinion because it is considered as a violation to citizens' freedom and damage the whole economy system.

First of all, smokers play an important role in the financial situattion of nation. In fact the industry of tabaco contibute with a large amount of money in the economy. Additionnaly, governments and individuals are making a lot of profits from the process of saling cigarettes for smokers. For exemple, the economy of several countries is based on planting tabaco, manufacturing it into cigarettes and exporting it to international markets.

Secondly, freedom is a crucial value that help to build strong and happy society, that's why including smooking in illegal acts could result in a massive choas because they can feel prohibited from doing something they want do and the right of freedom ensure this for them and it is their choice to smoke or not

In summary, the prohibition of smoking can not only lead to a limitation for the individuals freedom, but also a collapse in the economy of the country. From my perspective, this kind of decisions could not be made.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

Your position is clear: you strongly oppose making smoking illegal, and you give two relevant reasons—economic effects and personal freedom. The example of countries growing, manufacturing and exporting tobacco helps illustrate the economic point. However, both arguments are only briefly developed, and the response does not address the health risks in any detail, even though these are central to the prompt. Explain why regulation or other measures would be preferable to prohibition, and support the freedom argument with a clearer consequence or example. The response also contains 217 words, below the required 250, so there is not enough space to develop the ideas fully. A fuller discussion of the opposing view and a more developed conclusion would make the response more complete.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction states your view, two body paragraphs present separate reasons, and a conclusion restates your position. Sequencing phrases such as “First of all,” “Secondly,” and “In summary” make the progression easy to follow. However, some links between ideas are mechanical, and the second body paragraph runs together as one long sentence, making the reasoning harder to track. The connection between economic benefits and the claim that prohibition would damage the whole economy also needs clearer explanation. Use sentence breaks and more precise referencing, and make each paragraph develop its main point step by step. This would strengthen cohesion while preserving the clear overall arrangement.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use some topic-relevant vocabulary, including “industry,” “financial situation,” “international markets,” “prohibition,” and “freedom.” These choices help communicate your main ideas, and you attempt more formal language. However, spelling and word-choice errors are noticeable and sometimes make the reader pause: “consodered,” “spreaded,” “situattion,” “tabaco,” and “choas” are examples. Some combinations are also unnatural, such as “profits from the process of saling cigarettes” and “a limitation for the individuals freedom.” Aim for accurate, natural collocations and check spelling carefully. A more precise range of terms for public health, taxation, employment and individual rights would also help you express the argument with greater clarity.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including a reason clause with “because” and a result clause beginning “because they can feel prohibited.” The overall meaning is generally understandable, but errors in sentence structure and grammatical control recur. For example, “the industry of tabaco contibute” has a subject–verb agreement problem, while “freedom is a crucial value that help” also needs agreement. The sentence beginning “Secondly” contains several ideas joined without clear punctuation, and “they want do” is missing “to.” Work on agreement, infinitive patterns, articles and sentence boundaries. More accurate control of these patterns would make your ideas easier to read and support a wider range of structures.

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