Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · 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 5.5)

Nowadays, there are different opinions on people smoking. Many of the people think that smoking is injurious to health and should be made illegal. While some of the people believe that smoking decreases the stress issues and will create a chaos in many individuals lives. In today's essay I will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of smoking and give my opinion in the end.

To begin with, when you purchase a pack of cigarette, there's a warning on most of the packs saying, "smoking is injurious to health" but then also many people buy it and still smokes. During medical research, they concluded that smoking does relieve stress at some point but it turns our lungs black with tobacco and decreses the funtions of it. Thus, creating problems such as asthma and many other respiratory diseases. Moreover, a person who does smoke gets so addicted that he wants to smoke in intervals to stay calm.

On the other hand, there are many individuals who believe that smoking has made their lives easier. For example, there is a guy at my work named Derek who says that smoking does not create any problems and he is smoking a pack of cigarette daily for almost 35 years and he is still happy and fine and smoking is the only thing that keeps him alive and happy.

In my opinion, I am sikh and smoking is banned in our culture. Furthermore, I also believe that smoking is harmful for our health and thus create lung diseases. Even if some people smoke and nothing happens to them deosn't mean that smoking in not injurious.

In conclusion, I would like to say is if a person smokes, he should do in controlled manner and once in a while because like we say, "even consuming good things in excessive manner is harmful".

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response addresses the prompt by discussing whether smoking should be made illegal, though it misinterprets the task type slightly by treating it as an advantages and disadvantages essay in the introduction ("talk about the advantages and disadvantages"). The position is partially expressed, but ideas remain somewhat limited and under-developed. For instance, the counterargument is supported merely by a personal anecdote about "a guy at my work named Derek" rather than broader societal arguments, and the conclusion introduces a slight contradiction by suggesting smoking in a "controlled manner" after arguing against its harms. To reach a higher band, the writer needs to present a fully clear, consistent position and extend all main ideas with well-developed reasoning and relevant societal examples rather than relying on narrow personal anecdotes.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with clear paragraphing, dividing the introduction, body points, personal perspective, and conclusion effectively. However, cohesion at sentence and paragraph levels is sometimes mechanical or faulty. For example, transition phrases like "To begin with" and "On the other hand" are used to structure the text, but internal referencing and logical progression are occasionally weak, such as jumping abruptly from medical research directly into personal workplace anecdotes. Furthermore, referencing can be unclear, as seen in pronoun use like "funtions of it" where the antecedent link is slightly loose. To improve, the writer should ensure smoother transitions between sentences and maintain a more consistent logical flow throughout the progression of ideas.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The student uses a limited but minimally adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully communicating basic points about health and addiction through terms like "respiratory diseases," "addicted," and "tobacco." However, there are noticeable lexical errors in word choice, word form, and spelling that detract from the writing. Examples include typos and erroneous forms such as "decreses," "funtions," "deosn't," and using "excessive manner" instead of an excessive manner or excess. Additionally, phrasing like "creates a chaos in many individuals lives" lacks natural collocation. To achieve a higher score, the writer must expand their lexical range with less common vocabulary and improve spelling accuracy and precise word choice.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The essay employs a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on simple sentences and basic complex forms, and attempts at more intricate structures are frequently faulty. There are recurrent grammatical errors throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ("smoking in not injurious", "does smoke gets so addicted"), article omissions ("a pack of cigarette", "in today's essay"), and awkward prepositional patterns. For instance, writing "consume... in excessive manner" misses the required article. These frequent errors cause occasional difficulty for the reader. To move up, the writer needs to demonstrate a greater variety of error-free complex sentence structures and tighten control over basic grammar rules like articles and pluralisation.

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