Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-09-01

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)

In this current phenomenon, it is often argued that Smoking leads to very serious illness and it should be made illegal in the all nations. I completely agree with the view as it leads to fatal disease like heart and respiratory problems.

There are many reason for agreeing with this opinion. First and foremost is the leads to several diseases. To elaborate it , although smoking is like reducing tension for quite some time, but it leads to several fatal diseases such as getting a high chance of heart attack, reducing the life, respiratory problems like tend to get out breath after some works and many more. For instance, after running for few meters, using stairs or lifting heavy items get. As a result, it causes breathless easily. Secondly, it leads to put people into high depts. To explain it further, As smoking leads to serious illness it can also lead to blood cancer or a lungs problems and for curing this illness, people have to undergo through operation or sending to rehabilitation center to forgot the habits which have very high fees that can easily cause people into high depths.

Furthermore, another reasons is smoking also leads to environment pollution. To detail it out, cigarette buts are the major source of litter and can contaminates soils, water and air in the surrounding. Additionally, it affects people nearby, although they are not smoking but their health can be affected. Secondly, the cigarette butts in the surrounding which can be eaten by the animals and they can also fell sick. For an example, the butts eaten by cows who gives milk which is drunken by many individuals especially the children which can be easily affected and might get ill by drinking milk.

Conclusively, Smoking leads to several health diseases like heart, respiratory or a mental disease, it also lead the family into depts for curing the disease that happens after smoking and smoking also affect the non-smokers also as nearby people smoking or through a cigarette butts that eaten by cow or buffalo .

AI examiner evaluation

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

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt by taking a clear position in favor of banning smoking. The ideas are relevant, focusing on health risks, financial burdens, and environmental impact. However, the development of these ideas is inconsistent. For example, the argument regarding 'high depths' (debts) is somewhat confusingly explained, and the example of cows consuming cigarette butts is quite tangential and lacks a logical connection to the main argument of banning smoking. While the position is clear throughout, the supporting arguments would benefit from more sophisticated reasoning and clearer real-world examples to reach a higher band.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into paragraphs, and there is a clear attempt to use cohesive devices such as 'First and foremost', 'Secondly', and 'Furthermore'. However, the use of these devices is often mechanical and sometimes inaccurate, such as using 'To detail it out' or 'To elaborate it'. The progression of ideas is occasionally disrupted by awkward phrasing and repetitive sentence structures. Referencing is sometimes unclear, particularly in the final paragraph where the summary of points feels disjointed. The paragraphing is present, but the internal flow within paragraphs needs more refinement to ensure a smoother logical progression.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task but lacks precision and variety. There are several instances of incorrect word choice and collocation errors, such as 'high depths' instead of 'heavy debt', 'getting a high chance' instead of 'increased risk', and 'drunken by' instead of 'consumed by'. The student attempts to use some topic-specific vocabulary like 'respiratory problems' and 'rehabilitation center', but these are often surrounded by less natural phrasing. To improve, the student should focus on learning collocations and ensuring that words are used in their correct grammatical context.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors throughout. Common issues include subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'another reasons is'), incorrect preposition usage (e.g., 'undergo through'), and awkward sentence construction (e.g., 'the butts eaten by cows who gives milk'). Punctuation is also inconsistent, particularly with comma usage. While the meaning is generally clear, the frequency of these errors means that the student has not yet demonstrated the control required for a higher band. Focusing on basic sentence construction and proofreading for common errors would be beneficial.

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

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