Band 7.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 7.0 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-07-31

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Write about the following topic:

Many young people choose to take a year out between finishing school and starting university in order to gain work experience or to travel. The experience of non-academic life this offers benefits the individual when they return to education.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your knowledge or experience

Student answer (Band 7.0)

The practice of buying goods online has become increasingly common these days. While there are numerous advantages such as significant convenience and accessibility, the potential disadvantages of reduced employment and over shipping cannot be overlooked.

There are myriad merits associated with shopping on the internet such as convenience and access to unlimited variety. To expound, since the shoppers enjoy the luxury of shopping at their convenience sitting in the comfort of their home without any need to travel outside, this provides them with a riveting experience of shopping. Furthermore, this breakthrough innovative technology enables the consumers to compare and contrast multiple items of interest in terms of variety and costs. Therefore, they can compare the prices and shortlist the products after a thorough comparison online before the actual purchase. To exemplify, an experiment was conducted in Japan in 2023, suggesting that 80% of the shoppers compare food prices on the phone apps to compare the prices of the products before ordering.

On the other hand, some demographics believe that there are some demerits to this trend. One of the drawbacks is that it has contributed to unemployment in the retail industry. To elaborate, this phenomenon has reduced the need of staff to entertain the customers in the stores, which has led to a drastic decline in the retail jobs. Additionally, this notion has negatively influenced people to engage in impulse shopping. The consumer market gets heavily attracted to the advertisements on social media and on websites which further puts them in a formidable situation to engage in unnecessary purchases. Consequently, they waste the hard earned money on the items which should not be bought if we spend prudently.

To conclude, although the comfort of shopping at one's convenience and the access to the diversity in the products with an added benefit to compare the price, are the significant advantages of online shopping which has changed the shopping habits in a humongous way. Nevertheless, the

negative impact on the retail sector employment and the possibility to indulge in impulse shopping are the undeniable disadvantages of this trend.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response is completely off-topic. The prompt asks for a discussion on the benefits of a 'gap year' between school and university. However, the student has written an essay about the advantages and disadvantages of 'online shopping'. Because the student failed to address the task prompt entirely, this criterion is severely impacted. While the essay structure is logical and the arguments regarding online shopping are well-developed, they do not answer the question asked. In an actual IELTS examination, this would be treated as a task response failure.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 7.5

Despite being off-topic, the essay itself is well-structured. It uses clear paragraphing and logical progression. Cohesive devices such as 'Furthermore', 'To exemplify', and 'On the other hand' are used effectively to link ideas. The introduction and conclusion are clearly defined, and the flow of information within the paragraphs is logical. If the content had matched the prompt, this would be a strong performance in terms of organization and paragraph management.

Lexical Resource — Band 7.0

The student demonstrates a good range of vocabulary, including phrases like 'myriad merits', 'riveting experience', 'drastic decline', and 'spend prudently'. There is an attempt to use less common lexical items, and the control is generally good. While there are some slightly awkward collocations like 'over shipping' or 'humongous way', the meaning is always clear. The vocabulary is sufficient for a higher band, but it is applied to the wrong topic.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 7.0

The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures effectively. There is good control over grammar, with only minor errors such as 'the need of staff' (should be 'need for staff') and 'the hard earned money' (missing 'their'). Punctuation is generally accurate, and the sentence variety helps maintain the reader's interest. The grammatical control is solid, showing an ability to construct complex arguments with relatively few errors.

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