Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-09-22

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)

Nowadays, smoking is increasing day by day in the society and it creates health issues to the smokers and non smokers and it should be banned via the government. I completely agree with the statement.

First of all, Smoking affects badly on the human body, it cause many dangerous problems such as it damage the respiratory tract and bronchioles turn their colour from red to black. Due to this patient feel breathlessness as a result asthma introduce and start working on the other organs. For instance, according to time of india survey in the past decades the number of death caused by smoking increase 13%. Secondly, it damage the ozone layer of atmosphere. In the cigrettes there is a high amount of tobacoo present when it starts to burning it produce huge amount of pollution. Due to this our ecosystem change.

Moreover, government have to banned those things which is not good for people and environment. If it will not be available on any store the human mind will be divert and people have to avoid to use harmful slowly killer items. Additionally, youngsters learn many things from their parents and they follow them and they started smoking during their high schools and after 5-10 years they predators from cancer type disease which has no medicine overall the world.

In conclusion, government should take strict actions against the nicotine containing products for the better future of kids or their parents. At least they tends age limit from 18 to 30.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the prompt, clearly stating an agreement with the statement that smoking should be made illegal. The writer provides reasons to support this position, such as health risks and environmental damage, and includes examples and personal insights like the mention of a survey. However, some ideas are underdeveloped and rely on over-generalizations or slightly tangential points, such as the claim that cigarettes damage the ozone layer and alter the ecosystem. While the position is clear throughout, the development of ideas lacks the depth and extension required for higher bands. Overall, the performance aligns well with Band 6.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is utilized, though some paragraphs group distinct ideas together. Cohesive devices are used to signal progression, such as 'First of all', 'Secondly', 'Moreover', and 'In conclusion'. However, referencing and transitions are sometimes mechanical or faulty, as seen in phrases like 'start working on the other organs' and abrupt shifts between ideas within body paragraphs. This places the response comfortably in the Band 6 descriptor range for cohesion.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully communicating points related to health and smoking. There are attempts at less common vocabulary items, such as 'respiratory tract', 'breathlessness', and 'ecosystem', but these are accompanied by frequent inaccuracies in word choice, form, and collocation, such as 'predators from cancer type disease' instead of 'suffer from cancer'. Spelling and morphological errors are noticeable ('tobacoo', 'cigrettes', 'tends' instead of 'set'), but they do not severely impede communication. These characteristics are representative of Band 5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional structures such as 'If it will not be available...'. However, there are frequent grammatical and punctuation errors throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('government have', 'patient feel'), tense inconsistencies, and awkward phrasing ('the number of death... increase'). While the meaning can generally be deciphered, these errors cause some difficulty for the reader and prevent the text from achieving a higher band, making Band 5 an appropriate score.

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

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