Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-11-11

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

All university undergraduate courses should include a period of time spent studying abroad or doing a work placement.

Do you think the advantages of this would outweigh the disadvantages?

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

Student answer (Band 6.0)

Placement of work and chances of studing abroad should be included in the criteria of courses provided by universities for students. I think advantages of this would outweigh the drawbacks. As, students can learn practical skills and become financially independent at early age.

On the negative side, the one noticable disadvantage of studying abroad and doing a work placement there that a student can face is cultural shock. In another nation, it is most common thing that a person suffers from and because of this feeling isolation or confusion affects one alot. Individuals are not able to adapt other culture and distinct way of living.

On the positive side, students can learn practical skills by living abroad. They can indulge in number of skills which is also benefical them for earning livelihood. Moreover, bacis life saving skills such as first aid, cooking, plumbing, washing, using various tools such as hammer and many more which are useful for them and make their daily routine easy.

In addition, spending time in foregin country also makes a student independent at an early age. They can learn how to manage finance proprely. And learing this skill at such early age would be considered advantageous for life long for them. Since, there are many people who are not able to manage their finance through their life and if students learn it than it will give benefits to them.

To conclude, the significance of studying abroad and doing placement work are more in comparison with its demerits. Students can learn numerous skills and become financially independent.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

Your position is clear: you believe the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, and you address both sides by discussing cultural shock as a disadvantage and practical skills and independence as advantages. These points are relevant, but the response only partly develops the task. The discussion focuses mainly on studying abroad, while the work-placement element receives little separate attention. Some claims also need clearer explanation: for example, the list of first aid, cooking and plumbing skills is not closely linked to what university placements would typically provide. To strengthen the response, explain how both study abroad and work placements benefit students, and support each main point with a specific example or a more direct explanation of its impact.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The essay has a clear overall arrangement: an introduction, a paragraph on a disadvantage, two paragraphs on benefits, and a conclusion. Signposting such as “On the negative side,” “On the positive side,” and “In addition” helps readers follow the progression, and the conclusion returns to your position. This meets the lower-band expectation of coherent organisation and shows some features of stronger progression. However, links between ideas are sometimes mechanical, and sentence fragments such as “As, students can learn practical skills” and “Since, there are many people…” interrupt the flow. The paragraph about practical skills also shifts into a list without clearly connecting each example to the university-course proposal. Use complete sentences and make the relationship between each example and your argument explicit.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “cultural shock,” “practical skills,” “financially independent,” and “manage finance.” There are also attempts at more specific language, such as “adapt” and “isolation.” However, the range is limited and several spelling and word-choice errors are noticeable, including “studing,” “noticable,” “benefical,” “bacis,” and “foregin.” Some expressions are also unnatural or imprecise: “indulge in number of skills” and “placement work” do not express your meaning clearly. These issues do not prevent the reader from understanding the overall argument, but they reduce precision. Build a bank of accurate collocations for education, employment and personal development, and proofread spelling and word forms.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including a relative clause in “the one … disadvantage … that a student can face” and a conditional structure beginning “if students learn it.” The main ideas are generally understandable, but control is uneven, and errors in sentence construction and punctuation sometimes make the reader pause. For example, “As, students can learn…” and “Since, there are many people…” are dependent clauses incorrectly separated as sentences, while “one alot” and “adapt other culture” show problems with spacing and grammatical structure. There are also awkward constructions such as “would be considered advantageous for life long for them.” Practise joining dependent clauses to complete sentences, and check articles, prepositions and sentence boundaries while retaining your attempts at complex structures.

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