Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-09-16
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 5.5)
Gaining a work experience before starting the university helps the student becomes more responsible and career oriented professional in the future. Besides, it also depends on the students whether they want to experience the non-academic life or academic. Some of the families also wanted their child to gain some knowledge or ideas before continuing the academic life and some families want thier child to continue the university right after finishing school.
To begin with, many young people opted to take a year out between finishing school and starting university is almost a good thing to start with as some of the students who wants to persue in Engineering, technical domain or field. Having work experience before university helps the student able to help financially for the future. It also helps the resume in the future and shows the student has outgoing, responsible, goal oriented personality.
On the other hand, some of the students who wants to continue university in arts major does not need much experience as compared to students who will continue their study in technical major. Students who will continue their academic in fields like Literature, Fine arts, Mass media need assistance from the expert or faculty. Although studying right after school to university saves time and make the student graduated faster and able to continue their career life.
In conclusion, student who opted to take a year out between finishing school and starting university in order to gain work experience or student who continue their academic life have their own merits and demerits.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The response addresses the prompt by discussing the merits and drawbacks of taking a gap year versus entering university immediately. The writer takes a somewhat balanced view, acknowledging both sides. However, the development of ideas remains somewhat superficial. For example, the argument regarding technical majors versus arts majors is introduced in the third paragraph but lacks sufficient elaboration or concrete examples to fully extend the argument. Additionally, there are minor tangents regarding family preferences in the introduction that do not directly answer the core question of whether the experience benefits the individual when they return to education. Overall, the task is addressed adequately, placing this response at Band 6.0 according to the criteria.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to structure the response into introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different arguments. However, cohesion at the sentence level is occasionally faulty and mechanical. For instance, transitional phrases like 'To begin with' and 'On the other hand' are present, but referencing is sometimes unclear, such as pronoun usage in 'some families want thier child to continue the university right after finishing school'. Progression is occasionally hindered by abrupt shifts between ideas, placing the cohesion aspects firmly at a Band 6.0 level.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms such as 'career oriented professional', 'financial support', and 'technical domain'. There are, however, noticeable word choice and collocation inaccuracies throughout the text, such as 'Gaining a work experience' (missing article/uncountable noun error) and 'persue in Engineering' (incorrect spelling and preposition). Spelling errors like 'thier' also occur. While these errors do not severely impede communication, they restrict the lexical score. Therefore, a Band 5.5 is appropriate for lexical resource.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some variety in structure. However, there are frequent grammatical errors in the text, particularly concerning subject-verb agreement and clause structures, such as 'many young people opted to take a year out... is almost a good thing' and 'student who opted to take a year out... have their own merits'. Punctuation and article usage also show persistent inaccuracies. While the meaning is mostly recoverable, the high frequency of grammatical slips prevents the score from reaching a Band 6.0, making Band 5.5 a fair reflection of the current grammatical control.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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