Band 7.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 7.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-30

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 7.0)

In this contemporary era, keeping ourselves busy is necessary for good mental and physical health, whether through having a good job, acquiring education or having a hobbies. From my perspective, leisure activities not only helps with creative learning but also are beneficial for our overall physical and mental well being.

To commence with, children tend to have more active and creative brain power, and they usually grasp and process information faster compared to other age groups. Additionally, young minds are often heavily occupied as they spend the majority of their time either at school or doing educational activities. Thus, they need to take part in leisure activities that help them relax and unwind. To elaborate further, hobbies such as painting, crocheting, tailoring, and dancing can also assist parents in discovering their children actual talents.

Furthermore, working individuals usually have the busiest schedules as they juggle between full-time jobs and home responsibilities. In this scenario, participating in relaxing activities can help them unwind after a long day and improve their health significantly. Moreover, it is crucial for retired people to maintain interests and participate in such activities. As they no longer work, they tend to get bored, which can sometimes lead to mental health issues. Thus, engaging in these recreational pursuits improves their moods notably.

To recapitulate, everyone is lost in their daily responsibilities and barely has time for themselves. Hence, having hobbies that not only relax our brains but also offer notable health benefits is very important for all age groups.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0

The student addresses all parts of the prompt by discussing why having a hobby is important across different life stages, specifically mentioning children, working individuals, and retired people. A clear position is established in the introduction and maintained throughout the essay. The ideas are supported with relevant examples, such as mentioning specific hobbies like painting, crocheting, tailoring, and dancing for children. However, some of the supporting ideas, particularly for the retired group, tend to be slightly generalised and could have been extended further with more depth to reach higher band levels. Overall, the response successfully fulfills the task requirements with a well-developed argument, demonstrating a clear understanding of the prompt's scope across multiple age demographics.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.0

The essay presents a clear logical organisation and progression throughout. Each paragraph has a distinct focus, transitioning smoothly from an introduction to body paragraphs addressing specific age groups, and concluding with a summary. Cohesive devices such as 'To commence with', 'Additionally', 'Furthermore', and 'To recapitulate' are used effectively to guide the reader through the arguments. Paragraphing is used appropriately and sufficiently, ensuring that the structure supports the flow of ideas. While referencing is generally clear, occasional slight mechanical transitions prevent the cohesion from achieving the seamless fluidity expected at higher bands, placing this response solidly within the Band 7 descriptor.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.5

The student demonstrates an adequate to sufficient range of vocabulary for the task. Less common lexical items are attempted, such as 'contemporary era', 'leisure activities', 'recreational pursuits', and 'mental well-being', showing some awareness of style and collocation. However, there are a few noticeable inaccuracies and grammatical slips in word formation, such as writing 'a hobbies' in the introduction instead of 'a hobby' or 'hobbies', and 'children actual talents' instead of 'children's actual talents'. Despite these occasional errors, the vocabulary is flexible enough to convey precise meanings clearly without impeding communication.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 7.0

The student utilises a mix of simple and complex sentence forms quite successfully, including conditional and participial phrases like 'whether through having a good job... or having a hobbies' and 'As they no longer work, they tend to get bored'. There is a good control of overall punctuation and sentence structure. However, minor grammatical errors persist, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('leisure activities not only helps' instead of 'help'), article misuse ('a hobbies'), and a possessive noun omission ('children actual talents'). These errors do not impede communication and appear alongside frequent error-free sentences, aligning well with the Band 7 criteria.

See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.

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