Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-29

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people believe that it is best to accept a bad situation, such as an unsatisfactory job or shortage of money. Others argue that it is better to try and improve such situations.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Many people thinks that, accepting a detrimental scenario is best from the disappointing job, as well as having lower money while some argue that it will be beneficial if constant efforts and other enhancement of that situation are also given to the particular situation. In this essay, I will elaborate both views by explaining my own perspective.

One of the prominent reason is that people often get struck by the particular situation where they get constant failure. This is because whenever people might get struck in the situation where they get constant failure, are tend to more struggle. So they are advised to accept the situation by that they don't feel guilty.

However, this will always impact people's mind to be struck in that particular condition. They will not think to earn. After it can be happen that accepting leads to laziness and a major reason for not being successful. For instance, if people generally admitted to the situation, they will be unlikely to improve the

A further argument is that by the constant efforts, people would change the scenario. This is because if a person identifies the reasons behind the failure, overcoming would be rather easy. Despite of tolerating the lower budget and the failures caused by the rejection from the interviews, it would be rather better to push harder from our limits and keep improving ourselves.

For example, a good example of this can be of Thomas Edison, who had failed thousands of time but keep trying and enhancing himself and invented the commercially viable electric light bulb

In conclusion, approving the bad situation can make us stress-free and can be lead to a steady life with lower money. Nevertheless, by attempting to constant time and constant improvement can lead to overcome the hardships, we face from the lack of money, from getting rejected by the interview. If we make ourselves better, the situation will be automatically get enhanced.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both views on accepting bad situations versus trying to improve them, and a personal opinion is presented, particularly in the conclusion and body paragraphs. Ideas are generally relevant, but the development is somewhat limited and repetitive. For instance, the discussion on acceptance leads to vague assertions about laziness, and the supporting example of Thomas Edison, while familiar, lacks deep integration into the specific context of jobs or financial shortages. Furthermore, some sentences are underdeveloped or unclear, such as the incomplete thought 'they will be unlikely to improve the'. Nevertheless, the writer covers both sides of the prompt adequately, earning a solid Band 6.0 for Task Achievement.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to structure the response into introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used to separate distinct ideas, such as the arguments for acceptance versus the arguments for self-improvement. However, the progression of ideas is sometimes hindered by mechanical or faulty cohesive devices, such as 'After it can be happen that' and 'Despite of'. Referencing can also be unclear, as seen in dangling pronouns and awkward transitions between sentences. While cohesive devices are present, they are occasionally inaccurate or overused, keeping the response firmly at Band 6.0 for Coherence and Cohesion.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common phrases like 'detrimental scenario', 'commercially viable', and 'hardships'. However, there are frequent inappropriate word choices and collocations that reveal limitations, such as 'lower money' instead of 'financial shortage' or 'less income', 'constant time', and 'approving the bad situation' instead of 'accepting'. Spelling is generally correct, and although word choice errors occur, they rarely impede overall communication. The lexical range is minimally sufficient to express ideas, aligning well with the Band 6.0 descriptors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The essay demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting relative clauses, conditional structures, and participial phrases. However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are frequent basic errors, including subject-verb agreement issues ('Many people thinks that', 'people... are tend to more struggle'), awkward prepositional use ('Despite of tolerating'), and missing words or fragments ('unlikely to improve the'). Complex structures are often faulty, and punctuation errors occur. Although these errors do not completely obscure the meaning, their frequency prevents the writing from reaching a higher band, making Band 5.0 the most accurate descriptor for grammar.

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