Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-10-15

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 5.5)

Smoking causes severe health issues and should be prohibited. I strongly agree with this statement .The smoking adversely effects the respiratory pathway, lungs and increase the risk of heart diseases along with the cancer risk. It should be banned as passive smoking also effect the non smokers health and affects the environment.

Smoking affects the health and should be considered unlawful. The health of a person is at great risk due to smoking. It causes the increase in infection in respiratory pathway. Smoking effects the human lungs by affecting its alveoli. Smoking increases the chances of heart diseases. It also causes lung and mouth cancer. My uncle was a cigarette smoker. It was in his routine for around 4-5 years. It effects his health badly. Smoking blocked their heart vessels leading to increase in blood pressure. This lincreased the risk of cardiovascular attacks and he encountered two heart attacks in last year. It nearly paralyses his life and his health deterioated.

Smoking also has adverse affect on the society. Smoking in public areas should be completely prohibited. Public area smoking often lead people to the risk of passive smoking. In my university, people usuallly smoke despite of strict no smoking rules. It makes the environment very unpleasent. One can not breathe in fresh air. Passive smoking also put the victim on risk of health diseases along with the culprit. Strict laws should be enforced to prevent smoking in public area.

Smoking health effects are noteable and should be strictly prohibited. It risks the life of active smoker along with the passive smoker. It also made the environment unpleasent and increase the mental fatigue. Strict rules shoul be implemented to protect the health of smoker and society values.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

Your position is clear from the opening—“I strongly agree”—and you address both the health consequences of smoking and the effects of passive smoking. The examples of your uncle’s heart problems and smoking at your university make the discussion relevant and personal. This meets the task well, with some development beyond simply listing reasons. However, the argument that smoking should be made illegal is not fully explored: the response moves between banning smoking altogether and prohibiting it in public places, without clarifying whether you support a complete ban or restrictions on where people smoke. The environmental and “mental fatigue” points are also asserted rather than explained. Clarifying the scope of the proposed law and developing these points would make the response more complete and persuasive.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, two body paragraphs and a conclusion. The first body paragraph focuses on health, while the next turns to public smoking and passive exposure, so the reader can follow the main topics. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes repetitive: the health paragraph repeats that smoking harms health before listing several effects, and the conclusion largely restates earlier claims. Connections between ideas are often basic, relying on repeated “Smoking” sentence openings and “also.” Some references are unclear, such as “It nearly paralyses his life,” where the referent and intended meaning are difficult to follow. Use clearer links between cause, example and consequence, and organise each paragraph around a distinct claim.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough topic vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “passive smoking,” “respiratory pathway,” “alveoli,” “blood pressure” and “cardiovascular attacks.” These terms show an attempt to discuss health effects with some specificity. However, the range is limited by repeated use of “smoking,” “health,” “effects” and “risk,” and several word choices or collocations are inaccurate or awkward, such as “increase in infection,” “culprit” for a smoker, and “society values.” Spelling errors—including “deterioated,” “unpleasent” and “usuallly”—also reduce accuracy. Aim for more precise, natural combinations and check spelling carefully; for example, distinguish “affect” as a verb from “effect” as a noun.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You communicate your main points using a mixture of short statements and some longer sentences, including the sentence explaining how smoking affected your uncle’s heart. However, control is uneven, and errors in agreement, verb forms, articles and sentence boundaries sometimes make the meaning less clear. Examples include “Smoking … increase the risk,” “passive smoking also effect,” and “Smoking in public areas often lead.” The sentence “Smoking blocked their heart vessels leading to increase in blood pressure” also has unclear pronoun reference and an awkward grammatical pattern. Punctuation is inconsistent, as in the space before the full stop after “statement.” Practise checking subject–verb agreement and building longer sentences with clear subjects and clauses; this will make your range more reliable.

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