Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-09-22

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 6.0)

In contemporary society, many learners choose to take a break between finishing school and starting university in order to gain work experince or travel. I largely believe that the experience of non-academic life this offers benefits the individual when they return to education by elevating their mental well-being and improving their concentration academically.

One particularly significant advantage associated with breaks between school and going university is that it improves the mental well-being of the learner, which can have a substantial impact on their studies.

This can largely be attributed to the fact that schooling can put a lot of pressure to the students which can lead to stress in the long run. The significance of this becomes more apparent when learners are preparing for their exams as they can consequently be stressed out. This, in turn, can lead to poor mental health, thereby affecting their academics. Therefore, the extent to which breaks influences mental health demonstrates why it should be regarded as a significant consideration when assessing mental well-being of learners.

Furthermore, these breaks can improve concentration of the learners. This is due to the fact that learners can get time to re-energise and face the real world first hand. This experience alone can really motivate the to work harder in school, which can evetually boost their concentration when they return to education.

To conclude, although many young people choose to take a year out between finishing school and starting university in order to gain work experience or to travel, these breaks are important because they improve their concentration and mental well-being.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt directly, taking a clear stance that taking a gap year benefits students by improving mental well-being and academic concentration. The position is maintained throughout the essay. However, the development of ideas leans towards repetition and generalisation rather than deep elaboration. For instance, the argument regarding stress is stated multiple times without introducing concrete examples or varied facets of non-academic experiences like travel or employment. While the main points are relevant and meet the core requirements of the task, the support remains somewhat limited in scope, pushing the content firmly into Band 6 territory.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays an overall coherent arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is utilised to separate distinct points, moving from mental well-being to concentration. However, cohesive devices are sometimes mechanical or repetitive, such as 'Furthermore' and 'This is due to the fact that'. Additionally, referencing is occasionally imprecise, such as 'the extent to which breaks influences mental health', which disrupts the smooth progression of ideas. Despite these minor lapses in cohesion, the logical structure remains easy to follow throughout.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range suitable for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'contemporary society', 'substantial impact', and 're-energise'. However, there are noticeable spelling errors ('experince' instead of experience, 'evetually' instead of eventually) and slight collocation slips, such as 'put a lot of pressure to the students' instead of 'put a lot of pressure on students'. Word choice is generally functional and communicates the intended meaning without impeding the reader, though it lacks the flexibility and precision required for higher band levels.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some control over multi-clause structures such as 'One particularly significant advantage associated with breaks between school and going university is that it improves the mental well-being of the learner...'. There are, however, several grammatical errors throughout the text, including preposition omissions ('going university' instead of 'going to university'), agreement issues ('breaks influences'), and missing articles. These errors do not impede overall communication, but they restrict the frequency of error-free sentences, aligning the response with Band 6 standards.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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