Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-10-03

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 the modern era, smoking is one of the most serious illness and should be made illegal. I completely agree with this view because it leads to lung cancer and creates financial pressure on individuals.

One of the major reasons of smoking is that it can leads to lung cancer and cardiovascular diseases. When people smoke regularly in their daily lives, it negatively affects on them after a long time which causes a serious illness. This habit prevents them from recovering such a disastrous medical problems. Thus, people suffer this consequences for a longer period. Moreover, regular smokers have to spend a considerable amount of money on cigarrates and tobaco, which causes a financial burden on them. Buying smoking products require regular money to spend on them, which impacts on their overall budget. For example, a person from low-income backgrounds has a habit of smoking, which creates financial difficulties on them along with regular expenses, including house rent, electricity, internet plan. As a result, they face critical challenges in their lives and create a major burden on them.

Moreover, governments could increase taxes or duties on tobacco or cigarrates products and introduce stricter regulations on smoking. This method enables producers to reduce the production of smoking items. Therefore, it helps overall society from preventing the production system. Another important factor is that it mainly impacts environment. Smoking produces cigarrate smoke which can pollute the air and surrounding environment. As a result, it could reduce the concerns for air pollution.

To conclude, smoking can causes serious illness because it leads to cancer and pollute the air in the environment, while government plays a major role to make it illegal and stop the production by implementing taxes or duties.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task and presents a clear position throughout, agreeing that smoking should be made illegal. The ideas presented are relevant, such as the health consequences of lung cancer and the financial pressures on individuals. However, some ideas are more fully developed than others. While the points regarding health and financial burdens are introduced with some supporting explanation, other points, such as government regulations and environmental pollution, remain somewhat superficial and lack thorough extension. For instance, the mention that smoking impacts the environment and air pollution is introduced abruptly without strong supporting evidence or clear connection to why this justifies making smoking illegal. Overall, the task is addressed adequately, but further elaboration on all main points would be required to reach a higher level.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

There is a coherent overall arrangement to the essay, and the writer makes an attempt to logically sequence ideas through clear paragraphing. Each paragraph addresses a distinct theme, moving from health and financial impacts to government intervention and environmental effects. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or faulty. Cohesive devices such as 'Moreover', 'Therefore', and 'As a result' are overused and sometimes applied repetitively at the start of sentences, which disrupts the natural flow of ideas. Furthermore, referencing is not always completely clear; for example, in the second paragraph, the pronoun use and transitions between the low-income example and broader financial burdens create slight ambiguity in how sentences link together. Paragraphing is present and appropriate, but the internal logical progression of sentences needs smoother transitions.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The writer demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully communicating central ideas relating to health and finance. There are clear attempts to use less common vocabulary, such as 'cardiovascular diseases', 'financial pressure', and 'stricter regulations'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors throughout the text, including 'cigarrates' (cigarettes), 'tobaco' (tobacco), 'leads' instead of lead in certain contexts, and 'prevents them from recovering such a disastrous medical problems' (where collocation and plural agreement are incorrect). These inaccuracies do not seriously impede communication, as the reader can still grasp the intended meaning, but they prevent the writing from achieving a higher level of lexical precision and control.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating an ability to construct multi-clause sentences using conjunctions and subordinate clauses. However, there are frequent errors in grammar and punctuation that persist throughout the text. These include subject-verb agreement issues, such as 'smoking can causes' and 'buying smoking products require', as well as prepositional and article errors, such as 'negatively affects on them' and 'from low-income backgrounds'. Additionally, sentence structures occasionally become awkward or ungrammatical, such as 'which creates financial difficulties on them along with regular expenses'. While communication is rarely impeded completely, the frequency of these grammatical slips reflects a control limited to basic and moderately complex structures.

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