Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-11-01

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)

I agree to a fair extent that smoking can cause serious illesses. Making it illegal can be difficult option, but other options can be considered to handle this issue.

When someone smokes, they inhale the smoke, which contains nicotine. With the time, nicotine forms black deposits along the lining of the lungs. The deposits damage the lining, and water starts accumulating in lungs. This state ultimatley causes serious breath issues and can sometime leads to death.

I have personally witnessed a case of smoking. My maternal grand mother used to smoke 'Hukkah'; a large device with a pot containing tobacco, sugar and char-coal. 'Hukkah' is similar to 'Sheesha'. She was diagnosed with water in her lungs. Doctors were saying that smoking has cause this problem. This issue resulted into her death.

Smoking can also cause mouth or throat cancer. My paternal grand mother was diagnosed with throat cancer, that too was due to smoking 'Hukkah'.

I consider smoking an act of self-harm. It can be considered to make it illegal. But the issue is: many countires and indivisuals are associated with the bussiness of tobacco. Banning smoking can affect them financially. Either they should be provided with alternatives before banning or money should be insvested on inventing smart filters to be used, for example, in cigarettes butts to filter out nicotine. Currently, no major steps have been taken out to deal with smoking issue. Cigaretts, vapes, sheesha etc. are available in majority of the countries. They are sold with just health warning labels. Some premuim options are installed with nicotine filters. Issue of smoking needs proper attention to save human beings from the health issues caused by it.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

Your position is clear: you agree that smoking is harmful, while questioning whether an outright ban is practical. You address both the health effects and the proposed legal response, and the examples of your grandmothers’ illnesses make the health argument relevant and personal. However, the discussion of prohibition is less fully developed than the health examples. The financial impact on tobacco-related businesses is raised, but not explained in detail, and the suggestion of filters does not directly resolve whether smoking should be illegal. Clarify the extent of your agreement and weigh the alternatives against a ban—for example, explain why regulation, taxation, or support for affected workers would be more effective or fair.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable overall structure: it introduces your view, explains health risks, gives personal examples, and then considers the consequences of a ban. This makes the main line of argument understandable. However, progression between points is sometimes abrupt. The two family examples are presented in separate short paragraphs without much explanation of how they support the overall argument, while the final paragraph moves quickly from business impacts to filters and product availability. Some links, such as “But the issue is” and “Either,” help signal contrast and alternatives, but the relationships between ideas could be clearer. Use topic sentences and develop each paragraph around one main point, with transitions that show how the evidence leads to your conclusion.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “lining of the lungs,” “throat cancer,” “financially,” and “health warning labels,” and the meaning is generally clear. There are also attempts at more specific terms, such as “nicotine filters” and “alternatives.” However, spelling errors and imprecise or unnatural combinations reduce accuracy: “illesses,” “ultimatley,” “countires,” and “insvested” are examples, while “serious breath issues” and “water in her lungs” could be expressed more precisely. Some wording is also repetitive, particularly “issue” and “smoking.” Build accuracy by checking spelling and learning common collocations, such as “breathing difficulties,” “tobacco industry,” and “address the problem.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You use a mixture of simple sentences and some more developed structures, including the relative clause “which contains nicotine” and the conditional idea “Either they should be provided with alternatives before banning.” Most sentences communicate the intended meaning, but some grammatical errors remain. For example, “can be difficult option” needs an article, “can sometime leads” has incorrect verb agreement, and “Doctors were saying that smoking has cause this problem” has an inaccurate verb form. There are also issues with plural and article use in phrases such as “in lungs” and “a large device.” Review articles, subject–verb agreement, and past-tense forms, then proofread each sentence to ensure that complex ideas remain grammatically controlled.

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