Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-10-21

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)

People need break to releax their minds after completing their school and have some time to think about choosing univeristy. I strongly agree with young people choose to take a year out between finishing school and starting university in order to gain work experience or to travel.

The primary reason to take year out because young people need some time to think about what is good for them. When you travel, you explore differnet aspect how people is living their lives and what type of thing they do to earn money.Not only this, you explore culture,socialy and morall. I can share my example, after i completed my school i took a gap year in which i done differnet types of job and little bit travel. Through which i learnt alot and explore differnet opnion and prepective.

The experience of non-academic help you grow in life because it tell you about the life, what your life going to be in future. In addition, help you to develop crictically thinking which will help in your study. whenever you do some sort of research and need to write a paper. You became better at understanding and how to handle the situation properly. Makes your mind faster and cricticaly thinker and you don't need to think about it for a long time.

to conclude, i agree everyone should get some ecperience other than releated to education which will help them to grow in the future . some may start businesses and implement these thing to grow.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

Your position is clear: you strongly agree that a year out can benefit young people, and you give relevant reasons, including gaining work experience, travelling, learning about other cultures, and developing critical thinking. The personal example of taking different jobs and travelling helps make the response relevant. However, the benefits are mostly asserted rather than explained in detail; for instance, you mention that experience helps with research and writing papers but do not show specifically how. The conclusion introduces starting a business without developing that idea earlier. The response is 228 words, below the 250-word minimum; the 24 words copied from the prompt are not counted. Develop each main reason with a clear explanation or example to address the task more fully.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure, with an introduction, two body paragraphs and a conclusion. Ideas are generally grouped by topic, and linking expressions such as “The primary reason,” “In addition,” and “to conclude” help signal movement between points. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes difficult to follow: the travel and culture points shift quickly into your personal example, while the second body paragraph moves from future life to research, handling situations and thinking speed without clear connections. Some sentences are fragments, such as “Makes your mind faster and cricticaly thinker,” which interrupts the flow. Use topic sentences and connect each supporting detail explicitly to the paragraph’s main claim; clearer sentence boundaries and references would make the organisation easier to follow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “work experience,” “gap year,” “culture,” “research,” and “critical thinking.” These choices communicate the main subject and show attempts to discuss benefits beyond education. However, the range is limited, and several spelling errors or imprecise expressions make the writing less clear, such as “releax,” “differnet,” “opnion,” and “prepective.” Phrases such as “what type of thing they do to earn money” and “grow in life” are vague or unnatural for an academic essay. Build a more precise set of expressions for describing skills and outcomes, and check spelling carefully. More accurate collocations would help you explain your ideas without relying on repeated general words such as “thing” and “help.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including the contrast structure “Not only this” and a conditional idea about doing research and writing a paper. However, many sentences contain errors in verb forms, agreement, articles or sentence construction, and these sometimes make the meaning difficult to follow. For example, “young people need some time to think about what is good for them” is clearer than the opening claim, while “what your life going to be in future” is missing a verb. “When you travel, you explore…” also shifts from the essay’s general subject to direct address. There are fragments, including “Makes your mind faster…”. Practise complete sentences, consistent subjects and verb forms, and accurate punctuation; then check each sentence for a clear subject and main verb.

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