Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-10-14

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)

The number of bad habits are increasing by time and most of them came as a coincidence and then became an industry.

One of these habits is smoking which has dramatically increased in the last years at first only men was addicted to cigarettes however, lately women have been addicted as well and it is being extended to teenagers and even to children.

Smoking is a high risk habit especially to people with less movement, this habit have an uncoutable number of problems .

The most dangerous issue is heart diceases which may block blood ways and cause heart attacs in most cases.

The direct effect of smoking is on lungs when a person breath smoke it goes directly to his lungs with all its dirts and dusts and impurities causig serious breathing problems like what happened to my friend who have been smoking since he was a child now he is suffering from a vulnerability problem in his lungs he barely breath when it is both hot and cold also he suffers from hard dry cough in winter.

The highest danger of smoking according to scientists is cancer ,one of my family members who have smoked for approximately 40 years got blood cancer and when he went to the specialist doctor and looked into his blood analysis data he found out that he is in the last stage of cancer, at that time he realized that the writing on the cigarettes box was real and he should take it in consediration .

Due to these dangerous health problems we all ccan come to the same coclusion which is that smoking should be illegal and governments should make penalties and taxes for smokers because they are thrating there healths and spreading this bad habit and taking it to other generations

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

Your position is clear: you agree that smoking should be illegal, and you support this with relevant discussion of heart disease, lung damage and cancer. The personal examples about your friend and family member make the health risks concrete. This covers the task well, but the argument is not fully developed: most of the response explains why smoking is harmful, while the case for making it illegal—rather than regulating it or discouraging it through other measures—is asserted mainly in the final sentence. The opening claim about bad habits becoming an industry is also not developed. To strengthen the response, explain how prohibition could reduce harm and address a possible counterargument, such as personal freedom or enforcement difficulties.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a generally understandable progression: it introduces smoking, describes health effects, gives personal examples, and ends with a recommendation to make it illegal. The examples are relevant and help connect the claims to real consequences. However, the ideas are presented in a long sequence of paragraphs with limited internal organisation, and several transitions feel abrupt—for example, the move from heart disease to lung damage and then to cancer. Some linking phrases, such as “The most dangerous issue” and “The highest danger,” repeat a similar function rather than showing how the points relate. Use clearer paragraphing for each main reason and add transitions that signal addition, consequence or comparison. This would make the overall progression easier to follow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use relevant topic vocabulary, including “heart diseases,” “breathing problems,” “cancer,” “penalties” and “taxes,” and the personal examples allow you to communicate the seriousness of the issue. However, the range is limited and several inaccurate word choices or spellings make parts less clear, such as “uncoutable number,” “blood ways,” “vulnerability problem” and “threating.” Some phrases are also unnatural, including “increasing by time” and “taking it to other generations.” Aim to learn accurate collocations for health effects and public policy, and check spelling carefully. More precise wording would help you express the argument without relying on repeated general terms such as “dangerous” and “problems.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more extended sentence forms, including explanations of cause and effect and the sentence beginning “when a person breath smoke…”. The main message is usually understandable, but errors in agreement, verb forms, articles and sentence boundaries are noticeable. For example, “The number of bad habits are” should use a singular verb, and “this habit have” needs agreement. In “only men was addicted,” the subject and verb do not match; the long sentence about your friend also needs clearer punctuation and more controlled clause structure. Practise checking each sentence for a clear subject and verb, and divide long sentences where several ideas are joined. Greater accuracy in these patterns would make your examples easier to read.

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