Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-08-12

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 6.5)

Certain bad habits have a detrimental effect on health and make an individual prone to development of variety of diseases. Smoking is one of them, due to its contribution to development of life threatening cardiac and respiratory disorders, many people argue that is should be made illegal. I completely agree with such notion.

The first and the foremost disadvantage of smoking is it is quite addictive. It has a habit forming tendency due to presence of certain chemicals including nicotine. Eventually, frequency of smoking increases, which is putting smokers at risk of several diseases. Moreover, smokers also put their family members and other people at risk of passive smoking which is equally dangerous to their health. Therefore, considering its adverse effects and no benefits at all, smoking should be made banned.

A strict law for smoking can significantly reduce the risk of passive smoking and decline in frequency of smoking. Making it illegal means there will not be any commercial stores which are permitted to sell cigarettes. Furthermore teenage is the most vulnerable age, it is the age when youngsters get a chance to explore smoking for the first time. By implementing regulations against smoking its exposure to younger generations can be significantly reduced. Lastly, smoking also has negative effects on academic and professional growth of the individuals. For instance, people who do not posses any kind of bad habits can navigate their emotions in a better way also can mange their routine and sleep cycle efficiently.

In conclusion, complete ban on smoking will not only bring the health benefits to the existing smokers but also reduce the likelihood of teenagers to fall in a tarp of bad habits.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5

The response addresses the prompt clearly, maintaining a consistent position in favor of banning smoking. The ideas are relevant, covering health risks, passive smoking, and the impact on youth. However, the development is somewhat uneven. While the health and youth arguments are clear, the final point regarding 'academic and professional growth' is less directly linked to the core argument of legality and feels slightly underdeveloped. To reach a higher band, ensure every supporting point directly reinforces the central argument of why a legal ban is the necessary solution.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, each with a clear focus. Cohesive devices such as 'The first and the foremost', 'Moreover', and 'In conclusion' are used to guide the reader. However, some transitions are slightly mechanical, and there are minor issues with referencing and flow, such as the abrupt transition into the paragraph about academic growth. The progression of ideas is generally clear, but the logical links between sentences could be more sophisticated to improve the overall flow of the argument.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task. You use some good collocations like 'life threatening', 'adverse effects', and 'vulnerable age'. However, there are some awkward phrasings and minor errors, such as 'make an individual prone to development of variety of diseases' (missing articles) and 'tarp of bad habits' (likely meant 'trap'). To improve, focus on more precise word choices and ensure articles and prepositions are used correctly to enhance the naturalness of your expression.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are several grammatical errors, particularly regarding article usage ('development of variety', 'teenage is the most vulnerable age') and subject-verb agreement ('people... can navigate their emotions... also can mange'). While these errors do not impede communication, they occur frequently enough to prevent a higher score. Increasing the variety of complex structures and proofreading for small errors like missing articles or typos would significantly improve your grammatical accuracy.

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

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