Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-13

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

It is very common for people to change both their habits and their opinions as they get older.

Do you agree or disagree?

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Although many people believe that it is very common for citizens, their habits and suggestions alter as they reach to older age. I think in a reverse manner and disagree to the given statement. My stance is justified in the following paragraphs.

Out of all the arguments, the strongest one to support my stance is that older people have years of life experience. This is to say that experience comes from working and taking life decisions in their life. A good example for this is parents who advices their children when they meet to a groom or bride when first meet up is arranged for their childrens marriage. Besides this, it is also true that older people have strong ties with family members of diffrent groups in family. By this, I mean grandparents can go with their children and helps to make the impactful decision.

THE other reason is to prove my point is grandparents habits have great influence on grandchildresn. because they can taught the social values and bond when a child grows. In addition, the fact that a child absorbes the habit from their grandparents his also logical. For instance, childrens are very comfortable discussing the problems to their grandparents instead of their parents first.

On the contrary, some group counter claim the mentioned support. The foremost argument they do is their decision in life journey is not much impactful of older people. By this, I mean young generation want to fail in their life before discussing to older parents. Also, cultural aspects in village and living in city also differs when old parents visits to the childrens home.

Thus, to wrap up my discussion, it can be said that despite the life journey decision and cultural apsects, my reasons taking life decisions for their childrens and influence when a children grows are logically acceptable.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The student addresses the prompt by taking a clear stance against the statement, arguing that habits and opinions do not necessarily change significantly with age due to strong life experience and family influence. The position is maintained throughout the response, and ideas are supported with examples, such as grandparents helping with marriage decisions and the transmission of social values. However, some arguments lack full clarity and development, particularly the counter-argument paragraph regarding cultural aspects and young people making mistakes, which feels slightly disjointed and under-developed. These tendencies align well with the Band 6 descriptors, as all parts of the task are addressed, but some supporting ideas remain slightly unclear or limited.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a recognisable introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is utilised correctly to separate distinct arguments and counter-arguments. However, the use of cohesive devices is sometimes faulty, mechanical, or repetitive, such as 'Out of all the arguments, the strongest one...' and 'THE other reason is to prove my point'. Additionally, referencing is occasionally imprecise, leading to slight confusion in progression (e.g., transitional sentences linking ideas between paragraphs). These characteristics fit comfortably within the Band 6 descriptor, where the overall progression is generally clear despite mechanical cohesion.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common collocations and phrases such as 'life experience', 'impactful decision', and 'social values'. However, there are noticeable word choice errors and awkward phrasings throughout the text, such as 'habits and suggestions alter', 'reach to older age', 'meet to a groom or bride', and 'absorbes the habit'. Spelling is generally acceptable, but lexical inaccuracies restrict the precision of the argument, placing the response firmly at Band 5.5 for Lexical Resource.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some capability to construct multi-clause sentences ('Although many people believe that...'). However, grammatical errors are frequent and recurrent across the text. Examples include prepositional errors ('disagree to the given statement', 'discussing the problems to their grandparents'), article omissions ('when a child grows', 'young generation want'), and faulty relative clauses ('his also logical'). While these errors do not completely impede communication, their frequency prevents the writing from reaching Band 6, making Band 5.0 a more accurate reflection of current grammatical control.

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

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