Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-10-01

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 6.5)

Nowdays, smoking has become a major concern bacause it can cause several serious health problems. Some people believe that smoking should be made illegal to protect public health. I strongly agree with this view because smoking is harmful to both smokers and the people around them.

To begin with, smoking is one of the main causes of various health problems, such as lung cancer, heart disease and breathing difficulties. People who smoke regularly put their lives at risk. Moreover, smoking can also affect non-smokers through passive smoking. For example, Children who lives with smokers may develop breathing problems because they regularly inhale harmful smoke. Therfore, banning smoking could help reduce health problemss and create a healthier society. It would also reduce the financial burden on hospital and healthcare services.

Another reason to make smoking illegal is that it can negatively affect young people. Many teenagers start smoking because of peer pressure or curiosity. Cigarettes were banned, young people might find it more difficult to develop this harmful habit. In addition, governments could introduce strict penalities for selling tobacco products illegaly and organise awareness campaigns to educate people about the danger of smoking. Some people argue that adults should have the freedom to make their own choices. Although personal freedom is important, it should not come at the expense of other people health.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that smoking should be made illegal because it causes serious illnesses, harms non-smokers and encourages young people to deveop unhealthy habits. Governments should take strict measures to protect public health and promote a smoke- free environment.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by presenting a clear, consistent position throughout in favour of making smoking illegal. The main ideas are extended and supported with relevant explanations regarding health consequences, passive smoking, and the protection of young people, such as the mention of children living with smokers and the role of peer pressure. However, there is a slight tendency to over-generalise in parts, such as claiming that banning cigarettes would directly stop teenagers from developing the habit without fully considering potential black markets. Overall, the content fully meets the requirements for this level, offering a well-supported argument from introduction to conclusion.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear progression of ideas across paragraphs, moving logically from personal and societal health impacts to youth issues and counter-arguments. Cohesive devices such as 'To begin with', 'Moreover', and 'In addition' are used to guide the reader through the text. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes a little mechanical or faulty, as seen in minor awkward transitions and repetitive sentence openers. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct arguments, but to achieve a higher band, the transitions between paragraphs and sentences need to flow with greater flexibility rather than relying on standard formulaic markers.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The writer demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using topic-specific terms such as 'public health', 'passive smoking', 'peer pressure', and 'financial burden'. There are attempts to use less common vocabulary, but these are accompanied by some word-choice and spelling errors, such as 'bacause', 'Therfore', 'problemss', 'penalities', 'illegaly', and 'deveop'. While these errors do not impede communication, they reflect a lack of precision and control over spelling and word forms that keeps the lexical score at this level. To improve, the writer should focus on accurate word spellings and refining collocations.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The response exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating a decent command of structure with complex sentences used in statements like 'Although personal freedom is important, it should not come at the expense of other people health.' There are some errors in grammar and punctuation, such as missing possessive apostrophes ('other people health'), tense slips ('Cigarettes were banned' instead of a conditional structure), and minor capitalization issues like 'Nowdays'. Fortunately, these errors rarely impede communication and the basic grammar and sentence boundaries remain clear. To reach a higher band, the writer needs to increase the frequency of error-free complex sentences and eliminate minor slips.

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