Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-08-25

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)

Health issues are caused due to intake of harmful products. However, it is observed that acute disease shows up with regular consumption of puffing or vaping and it should be prohibited or completely banned. Therefore, I strongly agree with the statement as it causes serious health issues out of which many of them are non- terminated.

Smoking is often seen as an anti-depressant. For example, individuals suffering from extreme anxiety or stress indulge themselves in consuming puffs or using vape. Although, it provides temporary relief but it causes permanent damage to the respiratory system. Moreover, it acts as a stress controller but consumers have no clue of how badly it will affect their organs.

Consuming health hazardous chemicals results in complete damage of different organs. For example, it is evident that vaping causes disease named popcorn lung or scientifically known as bronchiolitis obliterans. It is caused due to excess intake of e-cigarettes which seems flavourful and exciting at first while with time it turns out be as acute disease.

On the one hand, it is written on the packaging as,' Smoking is injuries to health'. However, people still buys the product and consumes it without referring to the consequences it may cause. For example, some individuals believe that after smoking, an intake of dark coffee can cancel out the side effects. Although, there is no study which reveals that this claim is true or not. Many people buy this excuse instead of checking the facts before using the cigarettes.

To sum up, smoking is harmful for the overall health of the consumer no matter consuming it in variety of ways such as vaping, puffing, smoking or using traditional cigar. However, proper measures should be taken to control it such as organizing awareness camps, podcasts on lung cancer, smoking and many more.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt by taking a clear position in favor of banning smoking. The ideas are relevant, such as the health risks and the misconception that smoking relieves stress. However, the development is somewhat uneven. The argument regarding 'popcorn lung' is specific and well-supported, but other points, such as the 'dark coffee' anecdote, are less relevant to the core argument of whether smoking should be illegal. The conclusion introduces new ideas like 'awareness camps' which were not part of the main argument, slightly weakening the focus. Overall, the position is clear, but the depth of argumentation could be more consistent to reach a higher band.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, each with a central theme. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'Moreover', 'For example', and 'On the one hand', which help guide the reader. However, some transitions feel slightly mechanical or forced. For instance, the transition between the health risks and the packaging warning is a bit abrupt. Additionally, the referencing is occasionally unclear, such as the phrase 'many of them are non-terminated' in the introduction, which is confusing. Paragraphing is generally effective, but the flow between sentences could be smoother to achieve a more natural progression of ideas.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is adequate for the task, with some attempts at topic-specific terminology like 'bronchiolitis obliterans' and 'respiratory system'. However, there are several instances of awkward word choice and collocation errors. Phrases like 'intake of harmful products', 'non-terminated', and 'smoking is injuries to health' (should be 'injurious') indicate a lack of precision. While the meaning is generally clear, the range of vocabulary is somewhat limited, and the errors in word formation and collocation prevent the response from reaching a higher band. More attention to natural English collocations would improve the score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are several grammatical errors throughout the text, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('people still buys', 'consumer... no matter consuming it'), and incorrect preposition usage ('caused due to'). Punctuation is generally functional, but there are errors in the use of commas and quotation marks. While the errors do not typically impede communication, they are frequent enough to be noticeable. To improve, the student should focus on subject-verb agreement and refining the use of complex sentence structures to ensure they are error-free.

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.