Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-27
IELTS Writing Task 2 question
It is important for children, young adults, working people and the retired to have at least one hobby.
What's your opinion about this?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Student answer (Band 5.0)
It is important for children, young adults, working people, and retired people to have at least one hobby. Hobbies provide relaxation, reduce stress, develop useful skills, and make life more enjoyable.
Certainly. Here are the benefits of having a hobby for each age group:
Children: Hobbies help children develop creativity, confidence, and new skills. They also teach them how to use their free time productively.
Young adults: Hobbies can reduce stress from studies or early careers. They also help young adults discover their interests, develop talents, and build social connections.
Working people: Hobbies provide a healthy break from work and help reduce stress and mental fatigue. They can also improve work-life balance and overall happiness.
Retired people: Hobbies keep retired people active and mentally engaged. They can provide a sense of purpose, encourage social interaction, and make retirement more enjoyable.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 4.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0
The student attempts to address all parts of the prompt by identifying the benefits of hobbies across various age groups, including children, young adults, working people, and retired people. However, the response adopts a fragmented, bulleted note-like structure rather than a fully developed essay. Crucially, the response falls severely short of the length requirement, containing only 140 words compared to the minimum of 250 words. As a direct consequence of this under-length penalty, the ideas are severely underdeveloped, lacking extended reasoning and relevant personal examples from the writer's own knowledge as requested in the task instructions. Therefore, Task Achievement is significantly impacted by the word count deficit.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0
The text lacks proper essay structure and traditional paragraphing, relying instead on bullet points and conversational meta-commentary such as 'Certainly. Here are the benefits...'. While the ideas are grouped logically by age category, the overall arrangement does not form a cohesive and progressive essay format expected at higher band levels. There is a lack of transitional cohesive devices connecting the sections, making the overall piece feel disjointed and incomplete. The progression from one group to the next relies entirely on list headings rather than fluid discourse markers or cohesive ties.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The student demonstrates a minimally adequate and relevant vocabulary related to the topic, using terms such as 'relaxation', 'mental fatigue', 'mentally engaged', and 'work-life balance'. However, the lexical range is narrow due to the brevity of the text. There are no notable spelling errors, and the vocabulary used is appropriate for the context, but it lacks the sophistication, less common lexical items, and flexibility required to reach higher band scores. The repetition of basic phrasing restricts the lexical score despite the words being used accurately.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5
The sentences that are produced are grammatically correct and straightforward, featuring simple and compound structures such as 'Hobbies provide relaxation, reduce stress, develop useful skills, and make life more enjoyable.' The control over basic grammar is good, with correct punctuation and subject-verb agreement. However, there is a very limited range of complex sentence structures attempted, which prevents the writing from demonstrating higher-level grammatical versatility. Because the text is extremely short, the sample of grammar is restricted, but the sentences present are largely accurate with minimal errors.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
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