Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-08-11

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)

It is an irrefutable fact that, smoking is an injurious to health. I strongly agree that, smoking causes serious illness among people and sometimes it leads to death because it prevents various disease in human body which is heavily dangereous for health.

On the one hand, smoking prevents causes like asthma, throat cancer and TB and various types of problems which are mostly related to lungs and throat. The ingredients in smoking products makes fume which directly effect to the person who consume it and also affect the other person too, who is standing beside them. for example, cigarettes, vapes and more are the ways to do smoking. Furthermore, it also effect quality of air with which enviorment is strongly affected with them.

On the other hand, Nowadays mostly the youth is doing smoking who is the future of the world. This is like a addiction of drug. Smoking is considered as a common drug in new generation. for instance, according to the collected data information most of the young boys in the age between 20-25 years is doing smoking, which cause serious illness among them. In that case, government should considered smoking as an illegal drug and punish strictly the person who is doing smoking openly. This rule helps a lot to save our youth from smoking addiction. Furthermore, parents also look after their kids to save or protect them from bad companies and get busy into some activities to stay them healthy.

In conclusion, the growing tendency among youth adults of smoking , ministry should aware them and also give education about how smoking is dangereous for our health.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt by taking a clear position in favor of making smoking illegal. However, the development of ideas is inconsistent. The first body paragraph contains a significant logical error, stating that smoking 'prevents' diseases like asthma and cancer, which contradicts the premise of the essay. While the second paragraph discusses the impact on youth and suggests government intervention, the arguments are somewhat repetitive and lack depth. To reach a higher band, you must ensure your supporting points are factually logical and fully developed with clear, relevant examples rather than general statements.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the structure. However, the progression of ideas is often hindered by awkward phrasing and mechanical use of cohesive devices. For example, the transition 'On the one hand' is used to introduce the health risks, but the subsequent argument is confusingly phrased. Referencing is sometimes unclear, such as the use of 'them' in 'environment is strongly affected with them', where the antecedent is ambiguous. Improving the flow between sentences and ensuring that cohesive devices are used to link logical ideas, rather than just acting as signposts, will improve your score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task but lacks precision and variety. There are several instances of incorrect word choice, such as 'prevents' instead of 'causes' or 'leads to', and 'doing smoking' instead of 'smoking'. Spelling errors like 'dangereous' and 'enviorment' occur, and the phrasing 'collected data information' is redundant. To improve, focus on learning collocations (e.g., 'to take up smoking' or 'to pose a health risk') and ensure you are using words that accurately reflect your intended meaning rather than relying on basic, repetitive vocabulary.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay relies heavily on simple sentence structures, and there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally impede clarity. Subject-verb agreement is a recurring issue, such as 'the ingredients... makes' and 'most of the young boys... is doing'. Punctuation is also inconsistent, with unnecessary commas appearing after 'that' and 'fact'. While there is an attempt at complex structures, they are often faulty, such as 'with which enviorment is strongly affected with them'. Focusing on basic sentence construction and proofreading for subject-verb agreement will significantly improve your accuracy.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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