Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-05

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)

All undergraduate courses should include a study abroad plan or doing work placement during the course work of students.

In my view, studying abroad strengthens will provide you opportunity to experience globally, what the other states are doing in the same course or how they are working. Undergradutes will experience different cultures, languages, thier work ethics and much more. Which they can upbring back to their community.

Doing a job as part of study is also considered as practical world is far more different from bookish world. They can experience real work challenges how to address them in supervision, and they can easily apply what they have studied in the class. It will also provide better understanding of concepts, and all the learnings the had.

In my opinion both options are good and have thier own advantages, but studying abroad is an expensive option as not everyone belong to elite class or can manage expenses abroad.

Universities should offer open end option for undergraduates to opt for either of the option so student can easily navigate what suits them better or institutions can offer fully funded international study plans or offer them student loan so maximum student can benfit from the opportunity. on other hand employer and institutes have liasion and should offer paid work to appreciate and reconginise their efforts simultaneously.

If institures encourage both options and faciliatate undergraduates as much as possible it is beneficial fot the community as investment is education is one of the great investment which will be returned back to the community in multiple ways.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both studying abroad and work placements, and provides a clear personal viewpoint regarding the advantages and disadvantages. However, some ideas are more fully developed than others. For instance, the paragraph on work placements touches on practical world challenges and supervision, but remains somewhat brief and under-developed. Similarly, the counterargument concerning the high cost of studying abroad is introduced in a single sentence without deeper exploration. To move to a higher level, you need to extend all main ideas with more detailed explanations, fully fleshing out the benefits and drawbacks of both options rather than touching on them briefly.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a discernible progression of ideas, moving from an introduction to specific advantages, drawbacks, and finally a balanced conclusion. Paragraphing is used to separate distinct points, such as studying abroad versus work placements. However, cohesion is at times mechanical or faulty. Phrases like 'Which they can upbring back' or starting consecutive paragraphs with similar transitional patterns show that referencing and cohesive ties are not always managed smoothly. To achieve a stronger flow, you should ensure that sentences are linked more naturally and that referencing pronouns point back clearly to their antecedents without causing disruption to the reader.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The response demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'undergraduates', 'work ethics', and 'liaison'. However, there are noticeable word-choice errors and awkward collocations that restrict the score, such as 'bookish world' instead of 'academic environment', 'upbring back', and 'open end option'. Additionally, spelling errors like 'thier', 'benfit', 'institures', 'faciliatate', and 'fot' appear throughout the text. These inaccuracies do not entirely impede communication, but they prevent the writing from achieving greater precision and style. Expanding your range of academic phrasing and proofreading carefully for spelling will help elevate this criterion.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The text displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some attempt at subordination and relative clauses, such as in 'universities should offer open end option... so student can easily navigate'. There are, however, frequent errors in grammar and punctuation. Issues include subject-verb agreement problems ('everyone belong', 'maximum student'), missing or incorrect articles ('investment in education is one of the great investment'), and awkward prepositions or phrasing ('doing work placement', 'on other hand'). While these errors rarely completely impede communication, they are persistent enough to keep the control of grammar at this level. Working on complex sentence structures with accurate punctuation and agreement will yield immediate improvements.

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.