Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-09-16

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 6.0)

Smoking is dangerous for health and cause serious illness. Many people believe that it should be made illegal. I totally agree with this statement because smoking not only affects individual's health but also the other family members.

One of the most significant reason why smoking should be illegal is excessive burden on health system. Smoking causes serious illness like lung infection and cancer. Once people get affected by such diseases, they run to the hospital for cure. Health care system already faces problem of the scarcity of staff and smoking cause an additional burden on hospital to cure the person infected by the diseases caused by it.

Another significant reason of making smoking illegal is the widespread of disease. Not only does smoking affects the person who is doing it, but also other people who are surrounded by the smoker. The smoke of cigeratte is very dangerous for the people who stands nearby. Sometimes, people start smoking in public places where there are many children and older people who have problem like asthma and smoke caused trouble for them as well.

Besides, there is one more reason why smoking should be illegal is financial burden. People who crave for smoking cannot resist themselves for smoking regardless they have money or no. They start borrowing money to fulfil their craving and ingrounded into debt.

To conclude, smoking should be illegal because it not only cause serious illness for the people who smoke but affects his family member or their loved ones. To fulfill their craving sometimes people even hurt their family members.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response6.0
Coherence and Cohesion6.0
Lexical Resource6.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.5
Overall6.0

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt effectively, presenting a clear position agreeing that smoking should be made illegal. The writer introduces relevant supporting ideas across the body paragraphs, such as the burden on the healthcare system, the impact of secondhand smoke on vulnerable populations, and the financial consequences of addiction. However, some ideas lack full extension and development; for instance, the point regarding financial debt is introduced quickly and could have been elaborated with more specific examples or greater depth. Nevertheless, all parts of the task are addressed adequately, maintaining a clear stance throughout, which aligns comfortably with the requirements of a Band 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction and conclusion, and the body paragraphs are separated logically. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct arguments, such as healthcare burdens and secondhand smoke risks. However, cohesive devices are sometimes faulty or mechanical. Phrases like 'One of the most significant reason' and 'Besides, there is one more reason why smoking should be illegal is' reveal awkward transitions and structural repetition. Additionally, referencing and pronouns are occasionally unclear, such as 'cause serious illness for the people who smoke but affects his family member'. These cohesive flaws place the writing securely at the Band 6.0 level.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The writer uses an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for the task, successfully incorporating terms like 'excessive burden', 'scarcity of staff', 'secondhand' concepts implied through description, and 'financial burden'. However, there are noticeable word-choice and collocation errors throughout the essay, such as 'significant reason' coupled with singular verbs ('One of the most significant reason... is'), spelling errors like 'cigeratte', and awkward phrasing such as 'ingrounded into debt'. While these errors do not impede overall communication, they demonstrate limitations in lexical control that prevent the response from reaching a higher band, making Band 6.0 an accurate reflection of the vocabulary profile.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting structures like 'Not only does smoking affects the person... but also...' and conditional-style framings. However, there are frequent grammatical errors, particularly regarding subject-verb agreement and verb forms. Examples include 'smoking are dangerous' (implied in structure), 'smoking cause an additional burden', 'smoke caused trouble', and 'not only cause serious illness... but affects his family member'. Punctuation and articles are also occasionally mishandled. Because these errors occur regularly alongside simpler constructions, the grammatical performance fits the Band 5.5 criteria well.

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

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