Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-17
IELTS Writing Task 2 question
Doctors tell us that we can get all the vitamins we need from having a healthy diet. Despite this advice, some people continue to spend large sums of money on vitamin pills.
Why do you think some people spend a lot of money on vitamin pills?
How could people be persuaded to improve their diet instead of buying vitamin pills?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Student answer (Band 5.5)
Some people continue to purchase vitamin pills despite being advised that a balanced diet can fulfill all the nutrients requirment.
People spend a lot of money by purchasing vitamin pills because nowadays companies are using different tactics in their product promotions by hiring different advertisments agencies and fitness models. For example, my gym trainer got an offer from a company to promote their newely launched product for muscle relax vitamin pills. This kind of strategies influenced people to buy vitamin pills. Moreover, there is mindset of some people that healthy diet is a long and lengthy process in order to achieve certain vitamin requirments. This fear ended up them lost so much of money in synthetic products.
In order to overcome this fear, goverment should launch different kind of seminars with the help of doctors in which present the benefits of healthy balanced diet. Furthermore, hire some fitness models and famous influencers to launch a campaign against this synthetic products and urge people to consume healthy diet for long term benefits. For instance, in my country the government arranged a collaboration with a famous athlete to urge people to adopt healthy life style and balanced diet, with the help of this campaign healthy lifestyle become a trend and there was a dramatically decreased in synthetic vitamin sales.
By putting a little effort we can end this fear that balanced diet is a lengthy process,
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The response addresses both parts of the prompt by explaining why people spend money on vitamin pills and suggesting ways to persuade them to improve their diet instead. Ideas are relevant, such as marketing tactics by companies and government campaigns involving influencers. However, the response is incomplete as it trails off at the very end ('By putting a little effort we can end this fear that balanced diet is a lengthy process,'). Crucially, the Length Check confirms the text is 16 words short of the 250-word minimum, which places the task achievement under-length and prevents a higher score. Overall, it satisfies the basic requirements of the task but remains partially developed due to the missing conclusion.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The essay is divided into logical paragraphs, with a clear introduction, body paragraphs addressing separate prompt questions, and an attempted conclusion. Cohesive devices such as 'For example', 'Moreover', and 'Furthermore' are used to connect ideas. However, paragraphing and overall cohesion are slightly hindered by the abrupt cut-off at the end of the text. Referencing is generally clear, and the overall arrangement shows an attempt at logical progression, but the lack of a finished concluding sentence impacts the structural unity of the piece.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common items such as 'synthetic products', 'mindset', and 'collaboration'. However, there are noticeable word choice errors and awkward collocations throughout the text. For instance, the writer uses 'requirment' instead of 'requirement', 'advertisments agencies' instead of 'advertising agencies', and 'newely launched product for muscle relax vitamin pills' instead of 'newly launched muscle relaxation vitamin pills'. Spelling errors like 'goverment' and 'life style' also appear, keeping the lexical resource at the Band 5.5 level.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The response contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as 'Some people continue to purchase vitamin pills despite being advised that...' and 'In order to overcome this fear, goverment should launch...'. However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are several noticeable errors, including subject-verb agreement and preposition issues, such as 'This fear ended up them lost so much of money' (instead of 'resulted in them losing'), 'in which present the benefits' (missing subject), and 'there was a dramatically decreased' (instead of 'decrease'). These errors occasionally cause slight difficulty for the reader.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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