Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-08-18

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Nowadays, a growing number of people with health problems are trying alternative medicines and treatments instead of visiting their usual doctor.

Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?

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

Student answer (Band 6.0)

In this contemporary world, people have become more advanced and knowledgeable, they believe that it is not necessary to go to a doctor for every minor health issue. This is totally a wrong concept because it has different health affects that will be detrimental for them. I will explain this in detail.

The first disadvantage is that their body become resistant to a wide variety of antibiotics beacuse of excessive use. Although they recover from certain isuue at times but due to unawareness, it remain untreated and when it is diagnised by the doctor, the problem becomes so worse and unable to treat.For instance, a person who eat paracetamol on regular basis for headache, his body will get resistance against it and a time comes when it will not eleviate his pain. As a result he increase medicine dose which ultimately affects his organs in the body.

The second drawback of not getting our routine checkup is we might develop a serious disease.If a disease is not properly diagnosed at the right time, it may lead to even death because it is easy to manage a disease in initial stages.For example, if a person has various symptoms of cancer, but he do not know about this will progress his disease to an advanced level and unfortunately, it could not be treated at later stage and the person ultimately die.This can be prevented by going to usual doctor on appearance of anr symptoms.

However, some argue that going to doctor for every small health concern is just a waste of time because that is easily treated at home.If someone go to a doctor, he will prescribe unnecssary tests that are costly for them and also makes them worried about there health.So, they think not to ask to doctor about every small issue.

To summarize, if we not seek medical attention on minor symptoms, it is expected to cause disease progression and ultimately death because of antibiotic resistance.Therefore, I strongly believe that it is a negative development to treat themselves by their own instead of taking right treatment for the right disease.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt by taking a clear position that the trend is negative. The main ideas—antibiotic resistance and the risk of undiagnosed serious conditions—are relevant and supported with examples. However, the development is somewhat repetitive, and the counter-argument paragraph is slightly underdeveloped in terms of how it relates back to the overall negative stance. To reach a higher band, you should ensure that each paragraph adds a new dimension to your argument rather than restating the same points about 'death' or 'disease progression'. The position is consistent throughout, but the depth of analysis could be more nuanced.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, and there is a clear progression of ideas. You use some cohesive devices such as 'The first disadvantage', 'For instance', and 'To summarize'. However, the use of these devices is sometimes mechanical, and there are instances where the flow between sentences is slightly disjointed. For example, the transition between the second paragraph and the third could be smoother. Additionally, some referencing is unclear, such as 'this will progress his disease', where the antecedent is not explicitly defined. Improving the variety of linking words would enhance the overall flow.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

You have an adequate range of vocabulary to convey your ideas, including terms like 'contemporary', 'detrimental', 'antibiotics', and 'diagnosed'. However, there are several spelling errors ('affects' instead of 'effects', 'isuue', 'diagnised', 'eleviate', 'unnecssary', 'there' instead of 'their') and some awkward collocations ('eat paracetamol', 'ask to doctor'). These errors are frequent enough to be noticeable, though they do not prevent the reader from understanding your meaning. To improve, focus on learning the correct spelling of common academic words and practicing collocations related to medical contexts.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While you attempt complex sentences, there are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with subject-verb agreement ('a person who eat', 'he do not know', 'he increase medicine dose') and article usage. Punctuation is also inconsistent, with missing spaces after periods and commas. While the meaning is generally clear, these persistent errors in basic grammar and punctuation limit the score. You should focus on proofreading your work to catch subject-verb agreement errors and ensuring that your complex sentences are constructed accurately.

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