Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-09-07

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)

Smoking is responsible for causing detrimental health issues which should be banned. In my opinion, instead of making it completely illegal, access to smoking should be limited.

Tobacco provides a multitude of potential challenges. Smoking regularly affects the lung normal functionalities resulting in serious problems such as lung cancers. It also accelerated other disease conditions and increases the mortality rates. If it is made illegal, risk of health will reduced greatly. Besides, it will also help the individuals in saving that buying money of utilize it somewhere more important. Not only that, regular chain smokers after fallen in disease, a lot of money is invested on there treatment because of highly expensive medical treatments. So, the family suffers financially.

However, in many countries, tobacco business plays a crucial role in economy. Moreover, plenty of people who worked in the smoking production industries will become unemployed if the smoking marked illegal. So, rather than totally banning, the price of tobacco should be increased so that the general people could not access it like before. Furthermore, closing down the production of smoking does not guarantee that the people life would not be at risk. Maybe they even involved in taking more dangerous drugs like opium, heroine especially who are unable to control there habit.

In conclusion, while smoking has bad effects on health, but due to economic dependency, limitation of reaching to public hands will aid in building a healthier and safer life.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response addresses the prompt by discussing the pros and cons of banning smoking. However, the essay is under the 250-word minimum requirement, which negatively impacts the development of ideas. While you present a clear position—that smoking should be limited rather than banned—some arguments are under-developed. For instance, the point about 'saving money' is vague, and the connection between banning tobacco and the rise of 'dangerous drugs' is asserted without sufficient explanation or evidence. To improve, ensure you expand on your supporting points to meet the length requirement and provide more depth to your reasoning.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, with an introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. You use some cohesive devices such as 'However', 'Moreover', and 'In conclusion' to link ideas. However, the flow is occasionally hindered by awkward phrasing and mechanical transitions. For example, the transition 'Not only that, regular chain smokers after fallen in disease' is grammatically disjointed, making the progression of ideas feel slightly forced. Improving the variety and accuracy of your linking words will help create a smoother, more professional flow throughout the text.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, using terms like 'detrimental', 'mortality rates', and 'economic dependency'. However, there are several instances of word-choice errors and awkward collocations, such as 'buying money of utilize it', 'smoking marked illegal', and 'people life'. These errors occasionally impede the clarity of your message. To reach a higher band, focus on using collocations more accurately and refining your word choice to sound more natural. Expanding your vocabulary to include more precise academic terminology would also be beneficial.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there is a high frequency of grammatical errors. Issues include subject-verb agreement ('risk of health will reduced'), incorrect verb forms ('after fallen in disease'), and missing articles or pluralization ('the people life', 'smoking marked illegal'). While these errors do not completely prevent the reader from understanding your argument, they are frequent enough to distract from the content. You should focus on proofreading for basic tense consistency and ensuring that your complex sentences are constructed with grammatical precision.

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

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