Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-28
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 5.5)
Universities should include one of them, either time spent studying abroad or doing a work placement, become a part of their course.
Studing abroad gives you a chance of learn in a different way. You get opportunity to know about their study hirarchy, way of learning, and other curricular activities.Through these different ways students can enhance their thinking ability. Moreover students intract other communities that creat the ability of thinking in a broaderway. Later on, this thinking help you to make better decision in both personal and practical life. In education this confidance and broad thinking help in choosing careers like medical,engineering,computer science and commerce. He knows his ability where he can score more. On the other hand, those universities that do not include a period of time spent studying abroad, their students have less exposure and fail to know their strengts.
Some university add doing a work placement in his undergraduate programs. Due to this step professionalism comes in the student. This process creat focus in those students that is very useful thing and it helps them throughout the life. Second thing that they learn from work placement is time management that increase their proficiency in managing numbers of task in shorter time. Teamwork is the third thing that they learn at work. In teamwork you learn problem solving skills. All these skills better their educational performance as well as personality. The same students later on represents thier country and take it to a high rank.
All the points shows both steps either to send students abroad for sometime or to send them at work place brings great and benificial changes in them.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5
The response addresses the prompt by discussing both studying abroad and work placements, presenting a clear position that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Ideas are extended and supported, such as mentioning how studying abroad enhances thinking ability and how work placements develop professionalism, teamwork, and time management. However, there is a tendency to over-generalise and some points lack deep extension, placing the response solidly in Band 6.0.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5
The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction and separate body paragraphs for studying abroad and work placements. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or faulty, as seen in abrupt transitions like 'Second thing that they learn' and 'All the points shows'. Paragraphing is present, but referencing and logical progression between sentences can be clunky, leading to a Band 6.0 score.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.0
The writer attempts less common vocabulary such as 'hierarchy', 'professionalism', and 'proficiency', but these attempts are often accompanied by word-choice and spelling errors ('Studing', 'intract', 'creat', 'benificial', 'thier'). The range of vocabulary is adequate for the task, but frequent inaccuracies in spelling and collocation keep the lexical score at a Band 5.0.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0
The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but control is inconsistent. There are frequent grammatical errors, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('Universities should include one of them... become', 'All the points shows') and missing articles or prepositions ('chance of learn', 'in broaderway'). These errors occasionally cause difficulty for the reader, though communication remains mostly clear, fitting the Band 5.0 descriptors.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
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