Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-06

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 5.5)

In this fast moving life where hustling between work and social life is a task, we often ignore personal time over work stress and job duties. In my opinion everyone who is working, children or an young adult should foster atleast one hobby in their lifeline. Hobbies help in a lot of way especially when it comes to stress managment and lifestyle as a medicine.

In my opinion hobbies can bring discipline to life which can never be subsidised by work no matter how much you enjoy it. Every individual should be developing some or other hobbies like swimming, playing sports, reading, travelling etc. Hobbies can turn into profession and sometimes it just feel like it happened within a blink of eye. Further hobbies can help develope many personal traits like discipline, patience and can greatly affect mood. There are already alot of ongoing research linking hobby with human brain.

Stress which has became an integral part of daily life seeks a lot of attention especially if it has been converted into a chronic stress. While a hobby can anytime be converted into full time profession and it's best example is "KFC" a very well-known food chain restaurant was once opened by an retired home maker chef. His hobby is now a multi-billion dollar industry being world largest food chain and a unicorn company. There are alot of examples in society already where hobbies have became a person's profession. One of my friend was veery keen of baking and somehow he also managed to open a succesful bakery.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

Your position is clear: you believe people of different ages should have a hobby, and you give relevant reasons, including stress relief, personal development and the possibility of turning an interest into work. The examples of the retired cook associated with KFC and your friend’s bakery help make the discussion more concrete. However, the response only partly develops the task: children and retired people are mentioned in the opening, but the body focuses mainly on working adults and hobbies becoming professions. The claim that hobbies build discipline and patience is also asserted rather than explained with a specific example. Develop the benefits for each age group and clarify how hobbies support wellbeing, not only career opportunities.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction states your opinion, followed by paragraphs about personal development and stress or career benefits. Linking expressions such as “Further” and “While” show attempts to connect ideas. However, progression within the body is sometimes unclear. The second paragraph moves from discipline to a list of hobbies, then to career changes and research without explaining the links between these points. The final paragraph begins with stress but shifts quickly to KFC and your friend’s bakery. Some connections, such as “While a hobby can anytime be converted,” do not clearly express the relationship intended. Organise each paragraph around one main benefit, then explain and illustrate it in a logical sequence.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use a range of topic-related vocabulary, including “chronic stress,” “personal traits,” “discipline” and “multi-billion dollar industry,” which helps communicate your ideas. There are also noticeable spelling and word-choice errors that make some phrases awkward or less precise, such as “fast moving life,” “hustling between work and social life,” “subsidised by work” and “keen of baking.” Several expressions are repeated, particularly “hobbies” and “profession,” and “alot” appears more than once. Aim for accurate, natural collocations and check spelling carefully. More precise wording would also help distinguish between a hobby becoming a career and a hobby simply improving someone’s wellbeing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt both simple and more complex sentences, including the opening clause beginning “In this fast moving life where…” and the sentence about stress becoming chronic. However, errors in sentence structure, verb forms, agreement and articles are frequent enough to make parts of the response difficult to follow. For example, “everyone who is working, children or an young adult” is not a well-formed parallel list, and “it just feel like it happened” has incorrect agreement and tense. “Stress which has became” also uses an incorrect verb form, while “was once opened” is an awkward passive construction. Practise building clear sentences with consistent tense and parallel structures, and check articles and subject–verb agreement during revision.

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.