Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-16

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Write about the following topic:

In many countries, family members work together in their family business.

Do you think family businesses have more advantages than disadvantages?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 4.5)

Dear Tomi sister,

I am glad to hear about your decision to studying abroad. That is an excellent decision and i want to assure you that you will not regret yor action.

I am also an hold student of Toronto university Canada, I lived and study in toronto for more than two years and i can boldly tell you that I enjoyed my stay throughout the course of my study. It was really a great experience for me, ranging from conducive enviroment of the school, to the friendly and accommodating student. In addition, the lecturer are well experienced and intelligent.

However, studying in Canada as thought me alot. The weather was extremely cold compare to our country, they have a wide range of tourist attractions. And their cultural diversity was great.

This university really helped me to achieve a good experience. You can apply for work in diiferent country and you will be employed. It also helped me to get more scores for my permanent residency application.

I wish you success as you proceed in your academic journey. I hope you enjoy your stay. Best wishes.

Yours faithfully,

Sofiat.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 3.0

The response completely fails to address the prompt regarding family businesses and their advantages and disadvantages. Instead, the student has written a personal letter to a friend about studying abroad in Canada. This represents a severe task misinterpretation and an off-topic submission, resulting in a low band score. Additionally, the response falls significantly short of the 250-word minimum, containing only 189 words. Under IELTS regulations, severely under-length and entirely off-topic essays must be penalized heavily under Task Achievement. Phrases such as 'Do you think family businesses have more advantages than disadvantages?' were completely ignored, leading to a band score of 3.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

Despite the complete failure on the task prompt, the letter maintains basic paragraphing and a recognisable layout for a personal correspondence. The writer uses basic transitions such as 'However' and 'In addition' to connect ideas, though paragraphing is somewhat disjointed and referencing occasionally lacks precision. The progression of ideas makes sense within the context of a personal letter, even though it is entirely irrelevant to the prompt. Cohesive devices are somewhat mechanical but generally manageable for the reader, placing this aspect in the lower-middle range.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates a basic and limited vocabulary. There are noticeable lexical errors and awkward word choices, such as 'hold student' instead of 'former student', and spelling mistakes like 'enviroment' instead of 'environment'. The range of vocabulary is minimally adequate for personal communication, but lacks the sophistication or precision required for higher bands, especially regarding academic or formal business topics. Repetitive phrases and basic descriptive words restrict the lexical score to a 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but grammatical accuracy is quite poor. There are numerous basic errors throughout the text, including capitalization failures ('i want', 'toronto university'), subject-verb agreement issues ('the lecturer are'), tense inconsistencies ('as thought me alot' instead of 'has taught me a lot'), and punctuation errors. These persistent errors demand effort from the reader, though they do not completely obscure the overall meaning of the friendly letter, leading to a band score of 5.0.

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.