Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

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

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 considered one of the highest addictive habbit, because it contains a chemical compund called "nicotine" which is highly addictive. Smoking causes cronic illnesses and should be illegal to sell commercially. Causing breathing and other several health related problems including diseases like asthama and there are several organisation which help people live an healthear life by quiting smoking.

Smoking causes harmful gases and other harmful substance enter lungs, which in longer term causes blockage in porse that absorve oxygen which lowers blood pressure causing heart related diseases. moreover, when oxygen level in body decreases it causes lower stamina , coughing and weakness. Smoking causes sexual problems as well.

My friend who is equivalent to my age got addicated to smoking , his habbit lasted around 5 years . he already showed symptoms like coughing one day he nearly collapsed while driving making him realise how addicted he got with smoking and decided to quit. There are several private and public organisation and rehabs which helps people who want to overcome their habbit of smoking my friend contacted them eventually quiting his smoking.

In conclusion, smoking is very addictive and serious habbit considered cool amoung teenagers and sens of relife for people in tension. Quiting one is very difficult and has causes lots of illness in long run, as per my opinion smoking is very injurious to health and must help people and inform them about its flaws and diseases it causes.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You take a position that smoking is harmful and should be illegal to sell commercially, and you support this with health effects and your friend’s experience. These are relevant points, but the response only partially addresses the question: it does not clearly explain the extent to which you agree with making smoking illegal, or consider why prohibition might or might not be appropriate. The conclusion shifts towards helping and informing smokers rather than directly resolving the legality issue. Several claims, such as smoking lowering blood pressure, are not clearly explained. The response is also 8 words below the required minimum. Develop a clear position on prohibition and support it with more precise reasoning and examples.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure, moving from an introduction to health effects, a personal example and a conclusion. The friend’s story gives the third paragraph a clear focus. However, progression between ideas is sometimes difficult to follow: the opening moves quickly from nicotine to illness and then to organisations, while the second paragraph lists effects without showing how each supports the argument about making smoking illegal. Linking words such as “moreover” and “In conclusion” are used, but connections are often mechanical or unclear. Some sentences are fragments, which disrupts the flow. Organise the body around distinct reasons for your position, use clearer links between claims and examples, and ensure each paragraph develops one main point.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some relevant topic vocabulary, including “nicotine,” “addicted,” “rehabs,” and “heart-related diseases,” so the reader can understand the general subject. However, the range is limited and several words or phrases are repeated, particularly “smoking,” “habbit,” and “causes.” There are also frequent spelling and word-form errors, such as “cronic,” “asthama,” “healthear,” “porse,” and “quiting,” which make the writing less clear and reduce accuracy. Some combinations are unnatural, for example “highest addictive habbit” and “sens of relife.” Build a more precise range of health and policy vocabulary, check spelling carefully, and choose natural collocations rather than repeating general terms.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple statements and longer sentences, but the range is limited and complex constructions are often faulty. For example, “Causing breathing and other several health related problems” is a fragment, and “Smoking causes harmful gases and other harmful substance enter lungs” lacks a clear grammatical structure. Agreement and sentence construction also cause problems in “organisations and rehabs which helps people,” while the final sentence combines several ideas without a clear clause structure. Punctuation and spacing are inconsistent, including the comma before “moreover” and spaces before commas. Practise writing complete sentences with a clear subject and verb, then use conjunctions to connect related ideas. Proofread for agreement, articles and sentence boundaries.

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