Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-10-30

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 should be ban because it can cause serious disease. In this essay, I will discuss reasons and facts about why I agree that smoking should be made illegal.

The foremost argument to justify my stand is that smoking can cause a serious illness. Who smokes daily, his lungs can damage. They can face critical lungs disease. For example, a person who smokes daily, his lungs and a non smoker's lungs has a huge deference. Smoker's lungs are more damaged. However, smoking becoming an addiction to smokers. They have developed a strong habit of smoking. For instance, many smoker cannot live without cigarettes because they are addicted.

Furthermore, It is affecting young generation health. Many young boys and girls are addicted to smoking. Smoking at very young age can destroy their health and they can face big diseases at this young age. In addition, excessive smoking can cause cancer. Cancer itself is very dangerous disease and it can leads to death. For example, some smokers face lungs cancer dew to excessive smoking. Treatment of cancer is very expensive, and many patients cannot afford the treatment and died. Government should take serious steps. Smoking should be banned especially for young youth. There should be a strict law about under eighteen smokers. For instance, If government made smoking illegal, it can help to reduce number of smokers.

To conclude, smoking have a solid impact on health. Smoking can cause a serious health problem. If government take some steps it can be control.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

Your position is clear from the introduction: you agree that smoking should be illegal, and the conclusion restates its harmful effects. You give relevant reasons, including lung damage, addiction, risks to young people and cancer, with examples such as the cost of treatment. This addresses the main question, but the discussion of whether smoking should be illegal is less fully developed than the health arguments. For example, the suggestion of a strict law for under-eighteens shifts towards restricting young smokers rather than explaining why smoking should be illegal for everyone. Develop the policy argument and explain how a ban could work, while extending examples with clearer supporting detail.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, two body paragraphs and a conclusion. The ideas generally move from health damage and addiction to risks for young people and government action. Linking expressions such as “Furthermore,” “In addition” and “To conclude” help signal these stages. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes abrupt: the first body paragraph moves from lung damage to addiction without clearly explaining their relationship, and the second combines youth smoking, cancer, treatment costs and legislation. Some links are mechanical or unclear, including “However” where the point about addiction continues the argument. Group related points more carefully and use clear references to show how each example supports the main claim.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use enough topic vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “addiction,” “cancer,” “treatment” and “illegal.” However, the range is limited and several word-choice or collocation errors make parts of the response less natural, such as “critical lungs disease,” “huge deference” and “big diseases.” Repetition of “smoking,” “serious” and “health” also limits precision. Some spelling errors, including “dew” for “due,” further affect clarity. Aim to learn common collocations for health and policy topics, and check spelling and word forms during revision. More precise expressions would help you explain the consequences and proposed restrictions without relying on repeated general terms.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentences, including conditional forms such as “If government made smoking illegal, it can help to reduce number of smokers.” The overall meaning is usually understandable, but errors in agreement, articles, verb forms and sentence construction occur across the response. Examples include “Smoking should be ban,” “smoking have a solid impact,” and “it can leads to death.” The sentence beginning “Who smokes daily” also has an unclear structure, while “many patients cannot afford the treatment and died” shifts tense. Practise building accurate subject–verb patterns and using articles with singular countable nouns. Once these basic forms are more secure, vary sentence structures while keeping each sentence clear.

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