Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-30
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)
The universities should include a program in the bachelor's course of time spent studying abroad or doing a work placement.In my opinion students should be guided on thier plans for studying abroad.However, I also believe that it is important to help students with the placements who want to work after graduation.
On one hand, the universities must include a course for students who wishes to study abroad after their bachlors degree.Frstly, it can help students to keep their entire focus on the application for studying abroad.Secondly, if not applied it will affect their studies because managing both university and application for studying abroad can get hectic.For example, not having enough time can make the student loose marks in their tests or they failed to submit the application before deadline.
On the other hand, the university should impose a program of placement for students who wants to work after graduation.Firstly, implying placement program can benefit the students by securing a job even before graduation and also help them prepare for the real interviews by conducting regular mock interview practice's .Secondly, the disadvantage is that the students may get affected mentally for not having a job right after graduation and they may fail to secure a job because they do not have enough talent.For example, a student has to apply to several companies and they are still unemployed for months.
In conclusion,I agree that the universities should imclude a course of time period for studing abroad.However,i also believe that they must include placement cources for students who wants to work after graduation.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5
The student addresses the prompt by discussing both studying abroad and work placements, presenting a clear position throughout the response. However, the interpretation of the prompt leans slightly towards whether universities should 'help' with applications rather than debating the broader educational and professional merits of undertaking these experiences as part of undergraduate courses. Ideas are presented and supported with reasons, such as managing the stress of applications and gaining interview experience, but some points are under-developed or veer into minor tangents, such as the discussion on students not having enough talent. While the student covers all parts of the task, the depth of extension and nuance prevents the score from reaching a higher band. Overall, the performance aligns well with the Band 6 descriptors.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5
The response maintains a coherent overall arrangement and follows a recognisable structure with an introduction, body paragraphs addressing both sides of the prompt, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas. However, cohesion is at times mechanical or faulty. For instance, the transition 'On the other hand' in the third paragraph is used to introduce the work placement option rather than an opposing viewpoint, and referencing is occasionally unclear. Cohesive devices like 'Firstly' and 'Secondly' are employed, but the logical progression between sentences occasionally falters, particularly in the discussion of application stress. These limitations place the response comfortably within the Band 6 descriptor range.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The student displays an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'undergraduate', 'graduation', and 'unemployed'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word choice errors throughout the text, including 'thier' instead of 'their', 'bachlors' instead of 'bachelor's', 'Frstly' instead of 'Firstly', 'loose' instead of 'lose', 'failed' instead of 'fail', 'implying' instead of 'implementing', and 'imclude' instead of 'include'. While these errors do not severely impede communication, they occur with enough frequency to restrict the lexical score to Band 5.5, reflecting a mix of adequate vocabulary control and frequent mechanical inaccuracies.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0
The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilising structures such as conditional and relative clauses ('students who wants to work'). However, there is a lack of consistent control over grammatical accuracy. Frequent errors occur, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('The universities should include... thier plans', 'students who wants'), incorrect tense consistency ('and they failed to submit'), and awkward phrasing ('managing both university and application for studying abroad can get hectic'). Punctuation errors, such as missing spaces after commas and periods, are also prevalent. Because these errors are frequent and occasionally cause some difficulty for the reader, the response aligns best with Band 5.0.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.