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 remove this fear that balanced diet is a lengthy process, with help of campaigns we can shift this trend towards adopting healthy diet and overall well being.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response successfully addresses all parts of the task by explaining why people spend money on vitamin pills (aggressive marketing tactics and the perception that a healthy diet is time-consuming) and suggesting solutions to persuade them otherwise (government-led seminars, campaigns involving influencers, and promoting active lifestyles). The position is clear throughout, and relevant ideas are supported with examples, such as the gym trainer anecdote and the author's national context. Although the text is relatively brief, it easily clears the minimum length requirement, and the content fully develops the two prompt questions. The ideas are extended appropriately, leading to a solid Band 6.5 performance under task achievement.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The text demonstrates a clear overall progression and logical organisation. The response is divided into logical paragraphs, with an introduction, two body paragraphs addressing the specific prompt questions, and a brief concluding summary. Cohesive devices are employed to connect ideas, such as 'Moreover', 'In order to overcome this fear', 'Furthermore', and 'For instance'. However, some cohesive referencing and transitions feel slightly mechanical, and there are minor structural lapses, such as 'This fear ended up them lost so much of money', which disrupts the natural flow. Nevertheless, paragraphing is used sufficiently and appropriately, resulting in a cohesive structure that fits the Band 6 descriptors well.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for the task, attempting some less common lexical items such as 'aggressive marketing tactics', 'synthetic products', and 'collaboration'. However, there are noticeable word choice, collocation, and morphological inaccuracies throughout the text. Examples include 'nutrients requirment' instead of 'nutrient requirements', 'advertisments agencies' instead of 'advertising agencies', 'newely launched' instead of 'newly launched', and 'dramatically decreased' instead of 'dramatic decrease'. Despite these errors, the vocabulary is sufficient to convey meaning clearly, and communication is not impeded, placing the response firmly at Band 6.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The writing features a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating attempts at varied sentence structures such as conditional and prepositional clauses. However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent due to frequent errors. Notable issues include subject-verb agreement and prepositional use, such as 'This kind of strategies influenced', 'this fear ended up them lost', 'goverment should launch', and 'consume healthy diet' missing an article. Punctuation is generally acceptable, but structural awkwardness appears in sentences like 'with the help of this campaign healthy lifestyle become a trend'. These errors do not prevent comprehension, but they occur frequently enough to restrict the score to a Band 5.5.

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.