Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-12

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 5.5)

In recent times, patients of variety of diseases are doing experiments with altering their medicines and method of curing disease rather consulting healthcare professionals and specialist doctors. These type of trying and testing methods would have detrimental effect on body and health of human beings. I strongly believe this kind of practice would detoriate body and it could be resulted in permanent disability.

To begin with, human body is invaluable asset and it should not be treated like object of experiment. Complex systems of body are designed to function according to need. If a person is want to loose their weight, they must first consider minimum energy requirement of body. For and instance, Starting excessive exercise and suddenly changing diet without advise of doctor may be results in fatigue and felling more stressed as body needs proper diet. Without consulting dietician it would have detrimental consequences. Thus, experiments on body without advise of specialist doctor must be avoided.

Furthermore, Changing dose and medicine without consulting a doctor could create permanent disease or disability in body. Malfunction of organs and organ failure once occured, it is difficult to treat and no short of surety will there that it would be recovered. For an example, In 2022 at Madhyapradesh state, Many children took expired cough syrup and lost ability of speech. Therefore proper prescription and consultation of medicine is required prior to taking it for cure any disease.

To sum up, i bolster this viewpoint of increasing number of patients with disease changing their method of treatment and medicines is considered as significant drawback as it can lead to permanent disability.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by presenting a clear position that the trend of using alternative medicines is a negative development. The writer provides relevant ideas to support this view, such as the potential physical harm and the risk of permanent disability. However, the development of ideas tends to be repetitive and somewhat superficial. For instance, the example provided about children taking expired cough syrup in Madhya Pradesh illustrates the dangers of unregulated substances, but the reasoning throughout the essay is occasionally over-generalized and lacks fully elaborated supporting points. Despite these limitations, the main stance is maintained consistently throughout the text, corresponding well to a Band 6.0 descriptor level.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to structure the response into introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas, such as the physiological risks in the second paragraph and the danger of permanent disability in the third. However, cohesion is often faulty or mechanical. The writer relies heavily on basic transitional markers like 'To begin with', 'Furthermore', and 'To sum up', and referencing is occasionally unclear, as seen in phrases like 'These type of trying'. The logical progression is somewhat hindered by abrupt shifts and repetitive phrasing, placing this performance firmly in Band 5.5.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for the task, attempting some less common lexical items such as 'detrimental effect', 'invaluable asset', and 'prescription'. However, there are frequent word-choice errors, incorrect derivations, and awkward collocations throughout the text. Examples include 'patients of variety of diseases', 'doing experiments with altering their medicines', 'detoriate body', and 'no short of surety will there'. Spelling errors such as 'detoriate' (deteriorate) and 'Madhyapradesh' also occur. While communication is not severely impeded, the density of lexical inaccuracies prevents the response from reaching a higher band, making Band 5.0 an appropriate score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but control over grammar is weak. There are frequent grammatical errors, particularly concerning article usage, subject-verb agreement, and prepositions. Examples include 'method of curing disease rather consulting', 'human body is invaluable asset', 'If a person is want to loose their weight', and 'for cure any disease'. Punctuation is also problematic, with comma splices and capitalization errors present. Although the meaning can generally be extracted, the high frequency of intrusive grammatical errors means the text falls short of Band 6.0 standards, earning a Band 5.0.

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