Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 4.0 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-14
IELTS Writing Task 2 question
Some people believe that professionals, such as doctors and engineers, should be required to work in the country where they did their training. Others believe they should be free to work in another country if they wish.
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 4.0)
The given bar chart provides information about how families spent their weekly income in 1968 and in 2018.
Overall, food accounted for the largest proportion of weekly family expenditure in 1968, while leisure became the largest category in 2018. Spending on food, fuel and power, clothing and footwear, and personal goods decreased, whereas expenditure on housing, transport and leisure increased.
As shown in the graph, the average weekly spending by families on food was 35% in 1968, but in 2018 the percentage of spending decreased dramatically to 17%. Housing had about 10% in 1968 and increased to just over 19% in 2018. Families' average weekly spending on fuel and power was the lowest among all the categories with just about 6% and 4% in 1968 and 2018, respectively. Clothing and footwear had over 10% in 1968, and decreased to 5% in 2018.
The average weekly spending by families on household goods was over 8% in 1968 and did not change thereafter. Personal goods also had about 8% in 1968, but in 2018 they declined to over 4%. Transport also had just over 8% like the last two categories in 1968, and increased significantly to about 14%. In addition, families spent about 7% of their income on leisure, and the percentage grew sharply to 22% in 2018.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 1.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 4.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 1.0
The student has written an essay that completely misinterprets the prompt. The response describes a chart about family spending in 1968 and 2018 (an Academic Task 1 topic), whereas the actual prompt is a Task 2 essay question about whether professionals should be required to work in their home countries. Because the student has addressed an entirely different task, they have failed to answer the prompt, discuss the views, or provide a personal opinion. Furthermore, the length requirement of 250 words has not been met, as the response contains only 216 words. Consequently, the score for Task Achievement is severely impacted, reflecting a complete failure to address the assigned question.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
Despite being off-topic for Task 2, the internal organization of the text follows the conventions of an IELTS Task 1 report. The student begins with an appropriate introduction outlining the chart, followed by an overview paragraph ("Overall, food accounted for...") and body paragraphs detailing specific data points. Cohesive devices such as "whereas", "In addition", and "respectively" are used with reasonable accuracy. Paragraphing is logical, separating the general trends from specific statistical details. However, because the text is a complete task mismatch, the overall progression does not align with a discursive essay structure, limiting its coherence score under these constraints.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for describing statistical data and trends, utilizing terms such as "proportion", "expenditure", "accounted for", "decreased dramatically", and "grew sharply". There are attempts to use less common vocabulary relating to data comparison. Word choices are generally appropriate for a graphical report, with few spelling errors. However, the vocabulary is entirely unsuited to a Task 2 discussion essay, which requires abstract language related to society, employment, and policy rather than numerical trends and percentages.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5
The writing exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, with reasonable control over past and present tenses used for describing statistical data ("was 35% in 1968, but in 2018... decreased"). Grammatical structures are generally clear, and punctuation is used correctly. There are occasional awkward phrasings, such as "Personal goods also had about 8%", where verbs like "accounted for" or "stood at" would be more precise. Nevertheless, the grammatical errors are infrequent and do not impede the overall readability of the text, representing a solid grasp of basic sentence construction.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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