Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-09-29
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)
Smoking can cause serious illnesses and it should be made illegal. It can cause serious diseases such as lung cancer and heart disease. Some people believe that it should be banned and i agree with that because it can harm the smoker and the passive smokers.
One of the major reasons for making smoking illegal is that it affects badly on people health. It can cause severe diseases like lung cancer, heart disease, and Asthma. Smoking has a bad impact on your whole body. It ruins your health.
In addition, it can also affect passive smokers like children or anyone who is sitting around the smoker. Because when they breathe, the smoke will go straight to their lungs and their lungs will get damaged. So, I agree that banning cigarettes would be a great idea because it is not just hurting the smokers but also passive smokers especially children.
However, if the government takes strict action, it can save so many people from getting into these harmful diseases. Especially if smoking is banned the young generation will not get addicted to this disease but if cigarettes are not banned and are available, the young generation will get addicted easily.
For instance, when the youngsters will see that every other person is smoking they will find it normal, so the government should take some serious actions to save the lives of the young generation.
In conclusion, I would say that smoking can cause serious illness, and it should be illegal because it do not even have a single benefit on human health.It ruins a person's health from head to toe and it does not have a bad impact on the health of the smoker but also on passive smoker so, the government should ban it completely.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5
The response addresses all parts of the prompt by taking a clear stance that smoking should be made illegal and supporting this with relevant arguments. The writer discusses the health impacts on smokers and passive smokers, as well as the preventative effect on the younger generation. The position is maintained throughout the essay. However, some ideas are somewhat repetitive, particularly in the conclusion and body paragraphs where health impacts are reiterated without significant extension, placing this performance solidly at Band 6.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5
The essay is generally coherent with a clear overall arrangement. Paragraphing is utilised, with distinct introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Cohesive devices such as 'In addition', 'However', and 'For instance' are used to connect ideas, although some transitions feel a bit mechanical or repetitive. Referencing is mostly clear, though occasional minor slip-ups in referencing nouns and pronouns occur. Progression is evident, but could be smoother with more varied cohesive links.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The writer demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms like 'severe diseases', 'lung cancer', 'addicted', and 'passive smokers'. However, there are noticeable limitations and occasional word choice errors, such as 'it affects badly on people health' (should be 'affects people's health adversely') and 'it do not even have a single benefit'. Less common lexical items are attempted but lack precision and natural collocation.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5
The text displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as conditional structures ('if the government takes strict action, it can save...') and relative clauses ('anyone who is sitting around the smoker'). There are several grammatical errors and punctuation issues, including lowercase 'i' pronouns ('i agree'), subject-verb agreement errors ('it do not even have'), and awkward phrasing ('it affects badly on'). These errors do not impede overall communication, but they occur with enough frequency to prevent a higher band score.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
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