Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-09-15

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 6.0)

It is undeniable that smoking poses severe risk to human health, leading to life threathing conditions such as lung cancer and heart decease.Consequently, an increasing number of people argue that the production and comsumption of tabocco products should be completely banned by the law. While I agree that public smoking must be strictly restricted, I strongly believe that making smoking entirely banned is impractical and could lead to societal problems.

On the one hand, a total ban on smoking seems good because it protects public health. Tabocco use is one of the leading couses of preventable death worldwide, draining national health care budgets and lowering the productivity of workforce. Furthermore, secondhand smoke harms the health of the children in shared enviornments. If governments outlawed cigrattets, it would creat a healtheir society, significantly reduced the budern on public hospitals, and protcets innocent citizen from passive smoking.

However, implementing a compelete ban would likely creat severe negative consequences. History shows that when a popular substance is made illagle, it dose not disappering , instead, it moves to the black market. For instance: when alcohol was banned in the United states during the 1920s it led to a dramatic rise in orginised crime and illagle smuggling. If tabocco would banned, criminal synidicates would take over the trade, selling unnregulated and potentially more dangerous products. Additionally, governments would lose billions of dollars in tax revenue currently generated from tobacco sales, which is often used to fund education and healthcare services.

To conclude, aithough smoking causes serious illnesses, making it compeletly illegal is an unrealistic solution that would trigger smuggling and massive economic loss. Instead, government should focus on heavy taxation, public awareness campaigns, and strict bas on public smoking.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5

The student addresses all parts of the prompt by discussing the health risks of smoking and evaluating the extent to which it should be banned. A clear position is presented in the introduction, where the writer agrees that public smoking needs strict restriction but argues against a total ban. Ideas are extended and supported with relevant arguments, such as public health benefits versus the rise of black markets and economic loss, citing the historical example of 1920s alcohol prohibition. The response satisfies all requirements for Band 7, as it presents a clear, well-developed position throughout the essay.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The essay demonstrates a clear logical organization and progression throughout. Information and ideas are coherently structured, with each paragraph having a distinct focus: introduction, arguments for a ban, arguments against a ban, and a balanced conclusion. Cohesive devices such as 'On the one hand', 'However', and 'To conclude' are used effectively to guide the reader through the argumentation. Paragraphing is used sufficiently and appropriately. While occasional minor mechanical issues appear, the overall progression is clear, meeting the standard for a Band 7 descriptor.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary suited for an academic discussion, attempting less common items such as 'preventable death', 'criminal syndicates', and 'tax revenue'. However, there are notable spelling errors and typos throughout the text, including 'threathing' instead of threatening, 'decease' instead of disease, 'tabocco' instead of tobacco, 'comsumption' instead of consumption, 'enviornments' instead of environments, 'healtheir' instead of healthier, 'budern' instead of burden, 'protcets' instead of protects, 'compelete' instead of complete, 'illagle' instead of illegal, 'disappering' instead of disappearing, 'orginised' instead of organised, 'tabocco would banned' instead of tobacco were banned, and 'aithough' instead of although. These frequent spelling mistakes restrict the score to Band 6.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating the ability to use conditional structures and subordinate clauses, such as 'If governments outlawed cigrattets, it would creat a healtheir society...'. However, there are frequent grammatical errors and punctuation inaccuracies, including subject-verb agreement issues ('government should focus' instead of governments, missing auxiliary verbs like 'If tabocco would banned'), and multiple spelling-induced errors that affect accuracy. Although communication is not impeded and the ideas remain clear, the frequency of errors prevents the essay from reaching Band 7.

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