Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-08-07

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, smoking should be made permanently illegal because it causes several serious illnesses or diseases. I largely agree with this view point. This essay will discuss my opinion further with relevant examples.

To commense with, smoking can cause an issue of cancer. To elaborate in this, when people are smoking, they are comsuming harmful gases in their body. For example, cigarette consists of a tambacoo as well as chemicals. When individuals burn cigarette, it harmful molecules absorb with atmosphere. As a result, during breathing, these gases goes to people lungs, and cause different types of cancers like carcinoma, sarcoma and leukemia.

Furthermore, dangerous gases can reduce life expectancy. To explain it, smoking cause hollow effects in people body because our cells are not able to survive between harmful gases. Due to that, at certain period, cells would worse in a case of smoking. Therefore, individuals would not live life fruitfully.

However, the goverment should take strict action ragarding to smoking. To following this, states should stop the production of a cigarette, and declare this habit as a crime. Also, the goverment ought to published sticter laws about smoking, and people must be obey those rules. For instance, when individual having a cigarette, they need to pay certain amount of charge. In addition, authorities should spread awareness about harmful effects of smoking.

To conclude, I believe that smoking cause several illnesses like cancer, lung damage and heart disease, and it reduces life expectancy. I think that goverment should prevent the production of cigarette.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The essay addresses the prompt and maintains a clear position throughout. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited. While you mention cancer and life expectancy, the arguments are repetitive and lack depth. For instance, the explanation of how smoking affects cells is vague and lacks scientific clarity. To improve, you should provide more nuanced arguments, perhaps discussing the balance between personal freedom and public health, rather than just listing health consequences. The conclusion is also quite brief and does not fully synthesize the points made in the body paragraphs.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, each with a clear focus. You use basic cohesive devices such as 'To commense with', 'Furthermore', and 'In addition' to signal transitions. However, some of these are used mechanically or contain errors (e.g., 'To following this'). The flow between sentences is sometimes disjointed due to grammatical errors, which occasionally makes the progression of ideas feel slightly forced. To reach a higher band, focus on using a wider variety of linking words and ensuring that the relationship between sentences is more fluid and natural.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

Your vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, but it is often repetitive and contains several spelling errors, such as 'commense' (commence), 'tambacoo' (tobacco), and 'goverment' (government). There are also issues with word choice and collocation, such as 'hollow effects' and 'cells would worse'. While you attempt to use some topic-specific vocabulary like 'carcinoma' and 'leukemia', the overall range is limited. To improve, focus on learning correct collocations and proofreading for basic spelling errors to ensure your writing is more precise and professional.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay relies heavily on simple sentence structures, and there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally impede readability. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues ('cigarette consists', 'gases goes', 'smoking cause') and incorrect verb forms ('people must be obey', 'goverment ought to published'). Punctuation is also inconsistent, particularly with comma usage. While you attempt some complex structures, they are often marred by errors. To improve, focus on mastering basic subject-verb agreement and ensuring that your verb tenses are consistent throughout the essay.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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