Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Momentum Workout · 2026-08-25

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people think that the fictional violence portrayed on television is harmless entertainment. Others disagree and think that it encourages violent behaviour.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

In recent years, the television entertainment has included significant amount of fictional movies and series, most of the included fictional violence. Though some people think that it is harmless because it is only fictional, I think it is not harmless at all.

First of all, let's talk about the human behaviour and aggression. Humans are naturally aggressive and hunting-minded. But in the civilized society, people tend to follow social norms and rules to live a peaceful life. When people see those violence actions portrayed on television, the part of their brain responsible for aggression gets activated and they want to become vengeance.

Secondly, from one of my personal experience, I saw one of my classmate murdered a boy just because he bullied him in the school. That classmate used to watch a lot of episodes of "Breaking Bad", a famous drug-cartel violence television series. However, when he bullied him, he thought it would be so "heroic" if he take revenge from him. Because of that he took that bully's life with a knife and cut his heart out of his body and fed it to the street dogs. Though it may sound right, but morally and socially nobody has the right to take someone's life or do harm to anybody. Only the legal authorities has the right to punish the guilty, no one else. So, the vengeance mindset developed in his mind, somehow, related to the violence television series.

Last but not the least, though fictional violence portrayed on television like Batman, Superman, Walter White, Jessie Pinkman, Punisher, and Vedalam etc. are for entertainment purposes but they can have direct impact on someone's mind and trigger aggression and violence, that can be harmful for other people around him as well as for himself.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses both sides of the argument and provides a clear personal opinion. However, the development of ideas is uneven. While the first body paragraph attempts to explain the psychological impact of violence, the second paragraph relies on an extreme and somewhat graphic personal anecdote that lacks academic tone and relevance to the broader societal issue. The discussion of the 'vengeance mindset' is a good point, but it is not fully explored in a balanced way. To improve, focus on more generalized, analytical arguments rather than relying on singular, extreme examples, and ensure the conclusion synthesizes the main points more effectively.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, and there is a clear progression of ideas from the introduction to the conclusion. Cohesive devices such as 'First of all', 'Secondly', and 'Last but not the least' are used to signal the structure. However, some transitions feel mechanical, and the referencing within the second paragraph is slightly disjointed. The flow between the personal anecdote and the broader argument about legal authorities is somewhat abrupt. Improving the variety of cohesive devices and ensuring smoother transitions between sentences would help elevate the score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The range of vocabulary is adequate for the task, though it lacks sophistication. There are some instances of awkward phrasing, such as 'hunting-minded' and 'become vengeance', which are not natural collocations. The student attempts to use topic-specific vocabulary like 'social norms' and 'legal authorities', which is positive. However, the tone becomes overly informal and descriptive in the second paragraph, which detracts from the academic nature of the essay. To improve, focus on using more precise academic vocabulary and avoiding informal or overly emotive language when discussing serious topics.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are several grammatical errors, such as 'the television entertainment has included' (should be 'television entertainment has included'), 'one of my personal experience' (should be 'one of my personal experiences'), and 'the legal authorities has' (should be 'have'). Additionally, there are issues with article usage and verb tense consistency. While these errors do not prevent the reader from understanding the message, they occur frequently enough to limit the score. Focusing on subject-verb agreement and article usage will lead to significant improvement.

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