Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-10-08

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 can cause serious illnesses and should be made illegal, this statement is very controvertial and in my opinion it should be banned. Following below I will be explaining causes of smoking and support my views about why I support my statement.

One of the main causes of smoking is suffering from heart deaseses. The smoke contains tobacco and other harmfull substances which on inhailing regularly, damages the heart. It blocks different veins connected with the heart which distubs the blood flow causing heart attack. If it is not handled well before it become addiction then it can cause sudden death where the chances of revival are almost equvivalent to zero.

Secondly, smoking causes different types of Cancer. It can cause Lung cancer and skin cancer as well. If smoking becomes a habit then the happy days of your health goes to trash. So it's better to control it before its too late. When the person is diagnosed with cancer, mostly at this stage it already becomes too late to cure. As cancer travels really fast, it is difficut to identify in early stages unless you regularly get checked up.

Smoking also causes breathing problems, It is due to the fact that lungs play a vital role in the survival of human being. So when a person smoks, the first thing which will be affected are lungs. Breathing becomes difficult, Doing heavy tasks become imposible and running feels prohibited.

Finally, Now i can say the above statment that smoking should be made illigal. As it causes very serious illnesses which are difficult to cure. Suffering from heart attact, facing difficulty in breating and Suffering from cancer, These all can result in death of a person. So stop smoking before it's too late.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

Your position is clear from the opening: you agree that smoking should be illegal, and the conclusion restates this view. You address the health-related issue with relevant points about heart disease, cancer and breathing problems. However, the task asks how far you agree, and the response mainly lists illnesses rather than explaining why these risks justify making smoking illegal. The heart-disease paragraph gives a cause-and-effect explanation, while the cancer and breathing points are less fully developed and rely on broad claims. To strengthen the response, explain the case for prohibition—for example, how it could protect public health—and acknowledge or answer a counterargument about personal choice. The response meets the task’s length requirement; 10 words copied from the prompt were not counted.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a coherent overall arrangement: an introduction, three body paragraphs presenting health effects, and a concluding statement. Sequencing phrases such as “One of the main causes,” “Secondly” and “Finally” help readers follow the progression. However, the links are sometimes mechanical, and the paragraphs do not build a fully developed argument about prohibition; they mostly form a list of consequences. Some connections are unclear, such as “If it is not handled well before it become addiction,” where the reference and relationship to the preceding sentence are difficult to follow. The conclusion also repeats the illnesses rather than drawing the argument together. Use clearer links between each health risk and the case for a legal ban, and make references explicit.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use relevant topic vocabulary, including “tobacco,” “heart attack,” “Lung cancer” and “Breathing problems,” so the main ideas are generally understandable. However, the range is limited and several word-choice, collocation and spelling errors are noticeable, sometimes making the reader pause. Examples include “heart deaseses,” “harmfull substances,” “inhailing,” “equvivalent” and “illigal.” Some expressions are also unnatural, such as “the happy days of your health goes to trash” and “running feels prohibited.” Aim for accurate, natural phrasing rather than dramatic or conversational expressions. Building a bank of precise health and policy vocabulary, then checking spelling and collocations, would make the argument clearer and more appropriate for an academic essay.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and complex sentences, including cause-and-effect structures with “which” and “If,” and the overall meaning is usually recoverable. However, control is uneven, and errors in sentence boundaries, agreement, verb forms and punctuation recur. The opening joins two independent clauses with a comma: “Smoking can cause serious illnesses and should be made illegal, this statement…” The sentence “The smoke contains tobacco and other harmfull substances which on inhailing regularly, damages the heart” has an unclear structure and subject–verb agreement problem; “the happy days of your health goes” also has agreement trouble. Capitalisation and punctuation are inconsistent, as in “Finally, Now” and “Breathing becomes difficult, Doing heavy tasks…”. Practise accurate clause construction and proofread each sentence for agreement and punctuation.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.