Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.0 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-09-27

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 4.0)

Smoking can be very nocif to a person's health, yet people tend to smoke even aware of it can cause them real illness , they know what it's made of, they know it's consequences on their health and performance in daily life. Also people who smoke should know that smoking can hurt the person next to them such as kids and eldery people especially those with breathing or cardio problems .

so in my opinion the smoking is free choise to a person it is the same as drinking people can drink but not allowed to drink and drive at the same time ,so for the smocking people you can let them drive while smoching but can't let smoke in a hospital and for that smocking should be legal but not in place in witch they can harm others .

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response4.0
Coherence and Cohesion4.0
Lexical Resource4.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy4.0
Overall4.0

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

The response addresses the prompt by discussing whether smoking should be made illegal and presents a clear personal position that it should remain legal but restricted. However, the length requirement has not been met, as the response contains only 140 words compared to the minimum requirement of 250 words. This severe under-length prevents full development of ideas and results in a penalty under Task Achievement. While the writer attempts to give reasons and examples, such as the comparison with drinking and driving, the arguments remain underdeveloped due to the brevity of the text. Consequently, the performance corresponds to Band 4.0 descriptors for Task Achievement.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

The text demonstrates some overall organization and attempts to connect ideas, but the structuring is weak. The writing is presented as two very dense blocks of text rather than well-defined paragraphs. Cohesive devices are minimal or inaccurate, with run-on sentences and comma splices such as 'yet people tend to smoke even aware of it can cause them real illness , they know what it's made of'. Referencing is sometimes unclear, and the lack of proper paragraphing means that information and ideas are not arranged in a sufficiently coherent manner to achieve a higher band, placing this criterion at Band 4.0.

Lexical Resource: Band 4.0

The vocabulary used is basic and repetitive. The student attempts some topic-related vocabulary such as 'illnesses', 'performance', and 'breathing', but makes noticeable lexical errors, such as using 'nocif' (a literal translation from French or another language instead of 'harmful') and 'smocking'/'smoching' instead of 'smoking'. Other errors like 'eldery' and 'choise' further strain the reader's understanding. The range of vocabulary is limited and inadequate for a complete academic response, leading to a Band 4.0 score for lexical resource.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.0

Grammatical control is weak, with very limited structural range. The text is dominated by run-on sentences and comma splices, such as 'so in my opinion the smoking is free choise to a person it is the same as drinking people can drink but not allowed to drink and drive at the same time'. There are frequent errors in punctuation, capitalization, and basic syntax. Attempts at complex sentences are faulty and often obscure the meaning. Because errors are frequent and impede clear communication throughout the text, a band score of 4.0 is appropriate.

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

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