Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-08-14

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 known that smoking might pose crucial diseases, therefore it should be addressed seriously. I totally agree to the notion of deterring smocking around the whole world. In this essay, I will tackle the deadly causes that could happen by smoking and how we can avoid smoking.

First of all, smoking can lead to numerous fatal body diseases, as it can damage smoker's immune system which will weaken their body fighting against other diseases. Moreover, smokers can face many other problems because of heavily smoking on a daily basis, such as they will not be able to raise well-behaved children as the do not have time or even energy to behave their children. Also, people who are addicted to smoking can smoke other illegal substances, like drugs or weed. Most importantly, all these cases might lead to violent crimes, such as murdering or even stealing to get money in order to buy these illegal smoking substances.

Nevertheless, we have several ways to stop smokers avoid addicting these harmful substances, such as raising the awareness in societies about the deadly end of every smoker. furthermore, teaching children in schools about the bad results of smoking. Moreover, governments around the world should take serious actions about stopping the selling of all illegal smocking substances and put strict law rules to deter people from buying and selling such things. For instance, some nations have put that topic into consideration and have taken serious actions to stop people from trapping themselves into smoking cage.

In conclusion, although smoking can result in severe illnesses, raising awareness and governments interfere can aid in stopping people from falling in this deadly circle.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The essay addresses the prompt by taking a clear position in favor of banning smoking. However, the development of ideas is somewhat problematic. The argument linking smoking to 'violent crimes' and 'murdering' is a significant over-generalization and lacks logical support, which weakens the persuasiveness of your position. While you provide reasons for your stance, some points, such as the claim that smokers cannot raise well-behaved children, are not directly relevant to the core issue of whether smoking should be illegal. To improve, focus on more direct arguments such as public health costs, the burden on healthcare systems, and the protection of non-smokers from secondhand smoke.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into clear paragraphs, which helps the reader follow your argument. You use some cohesive devices like 'First of all,' 'Moreover,' and 'In conclusion' to link ideas. However, the flow between sentences is sometimes mechanical, and the logical progression within paragraphs is occasionally disrupted by the inclusion of irrelevant or unsupported claims. For example, the transition from the health effects of smoking to the parenting abilities of smokers is abrupt. Improving the use of referencing and ensuring that each paragraph focuses on a single, well-developed theme would enhance the overall coherence.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, using terms like 'deterring,' 'fatal,' and 'substances.' However, there are several instances of awkward word choice and collocation errors, such as 'pose crucial diseases' (should be 'cause serious illnesses'), 'behave their children' (should be 'raise' or 'discipline'), and 'smocking' (a recurring spelling error). Additionally, the phrase 'trapping themselves into smoking cage' is non-idiomatic. To reach a higher band, focus on using more precise collocations and ensure that your vocabulary is used in a natural, contextually appropriate manner.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While the meaning is generally clear, there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally impede the flow. Common issues include subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'the do not have time'), incorrect preposition usage, and awkward phrasing (e.g., 'governments interfere can aid'). Punctuation is generally functional, but there are errors in capitalization and sentence boundaries. To improve, focus on mastering basic sentence construction and proofreading for common errors like article usage and verb forms. Increasing the variety of complex structures while maintaining accuracy will also help raise your score.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.