Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-17

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 6.5)

It is valuable for the young generation, workaholics and retired people to have a hobby. It is one of the best ways to keep themselves concentrated, creative and utilize their spare time.

A person can have a hobby of reading books, painting, writing, listening to music, and gardening. These hobbies help children to think logically, improve their memory, and boost their skills. For instance, a young child who loves painting is able to find happiness in small things. He draws inspiration from his surroundings and puts it into his art. It improves his hand-eye coordination and polishes his creativity. Therefore, it is beneficial to improve knowledge and creativity by pursuing a hobby.

Having hobbies keeps people away from stress. After working long hours, professionals can spend their spare time or evenings pursuing a hobby. Gardening is one of the best spare-time activities. It not only refreshes an exhausted mind but also a form of physical activity. By enjoying the beauty of nature, a person automatically feels fresh and relieved of workplace stress. Writing is another good hobby for an older person who is retired from his job and does not have anything to do. He can start writing about his life, events that occurred at work, and can draw inspiration for writing from his surroundings.

In my opinion, hobbies help everybody in different ways. Whether to utilize free time, to improve creativity, to become able to solve problems, or as a form of meditation, hobbies play a great role. Some people can turn their hobbies into a passion. Therefore, hobbies play the best role in the lives of human beings.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

Your position is clear: you consider hobbies valuable for people at different life stages, and you give relevant reasons, including creativity, stress relief and using free time constructively. The examples of a child painting, a professional gardening and a retired person writing help connect the discussion to the groups in the prompt. This meets the task well, but the support is uneven: the benefits for children are explained in detail, while the points about working and retired people are more briefly asserted. The conclusion also repeats the general benefits rather than drawing together the examples. To strengthen the response further, develop one specific outcome for each group and explain how it supports your view that everyone should have a hobby.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response has a coherent overall structure: an introduction states your view, the body paragraphs discuss benefits for different groups, and the conclusion restates your position. Ideas generally progress logically, and examples are placed near the points they illustrate. Linking expressions such as “For instance,” “Therefore” and “In my opinion” help guide the reader, though some transitions feel formulaic, and “Therefore” is used to repeat a point rather than advance the argument. The final paragraph also lists several benefits without clearly connecting them to the earlier examples. More varied links between claims and explanations, along with clearer references to the groups under discussion, would make the progression smoother and less repetitive.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.5

You use an adequate range of vocabulary for the topic, including “hand-eye coordination,” “workplace stress,” “inspiration” and “pursuing a hobby.” These choices communicate the main ideas clearly, and you attempt some less common expressions. However, a few word choices and collocations are awkward or imprecise, such as “keep themselves concentrated,” “improve knowledge” and “play the best role.” “Spare time” and “hobby” also recur frequently, limiting flexibility. Aim for more natural combinations and precise phrasing—for example, describe hobbies as helping people “stay focused” or “make constructive use of their free time.” This would improve fluency and precision while preserving your clear meaning.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 7.0

You use a range of sentence forms, including relative clauses (“a young child who loves painting”), conditional phrasing (“Whether to utilize free time…”) and contrastive structures (“It not only refreshes… but also…”). Many sentences are accurate and easy to follow, showing good control overall. A few errors remain in more complex constructions. For example, “It not only refreshes an exhausted mind but also a form of physical activity” lacks a parallel verb phrase; write “but is also a form of physical activity.” In “Writing is another good hobby for an older person who is retired from his job and does not have anything to do,” the phrasing is grammatically understandable but could be made more concise. Check parallel structure and sentence construction when combining several ideas.

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

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