Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-26

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 6.5)

Nowadays, there is a growing tendency regarding people tend to buy vitamin supplements instead of having balanced diet. In my opinion, this issue is driven by a few major factors, and I believe certain effective solutions can help people focus more on natural food.

On the one hand, there are two significant reasons why people choose to spend their money on vitamin tablets. First of all, busy people do not have much time to buy regularly fresh ingredients and cook healthy meals every day. While they can go local store nearby such as drug store or pharmasive to buy vitamin, taking a pills only takes a few seconds. Secondly, many people believe that vitamin pills is better because it help people absord faster and more directly into the body compared to waiting from normal food. For example, mordern life in general, officer workers in particular with long working hours prefer taking a multivitamin pill in the morning instead of preparing a balanced meal with vegetables and fruits.

On the other hand, however, people can be persuaded to focus on a healthy diet through careful planning and self-discipline. To begin with, workers should plan their weekly meals in advance on weekend, and they can go to supermarket to buy food for whole week. Besides that, they can prepare their healthy food on weekends and put them into the lunch box on the fridge. It will help them save a lot of time for cooking. Next, individuals need self-discipline to follow their daily diet routine and avoid their laziness. Sometimes, healthy food is not attractive for people especially vegetables or fruits, people have to spend much effort on that to follow the plans before. For instance, setting a daily goal to eat such as eating at least one portine of fresh salad or fruit per day, it will help to build a healthy habit.

In conclusion, saving time and believing in faster absorption drive people to buy vitamin pills. However, I totally believe preparing meals with carefully planning and maintaining discipline are key to improving daily nutrition naturally.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0

The response addresses all parts of the task fully. The student successfully explores why people spend money on vitamin pills—citing time constraints and the belief in faster absorption—and subsequently provides practical solutions for how people can be persuaded to improve their diet through meal planning and self-discipline. A clear position is maintained throughout the essay. The ideas are relevant and supported with explanations and examples, such as mentioning office workers with long working hours. Although some ideas could be extended further, the coverage is thorough and meets all the prompt requirements, fitting well into the Band 7 descriptor.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The essay is logically organised with a clear overall progression. It is divided into four distinct paragraphs, including an introduction, two body paragraphs representing the two prompts, and a conclusion. Cohesive devices are used to signal shifts in thought, such as 'On the one hand', 'On the other hand', 'First of all', and 'To begin with'. However, some referencing is slightly clumsy, such as 'a pills' or repetitive transitional phrases, which keeps it from achieving a higher band. Paragraphing is used appropriately, and the central topic of each paragraph is clear throughout.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'balanced diet', 'multivitamin pill', 'self-discipline', and 'nutrition naturally'. However, there are notable lexical errors and awkward collocations throughout the text, including 'having balanced diet' (missing article), 'go local store' (missing preposition), 'pharmasive' (spelling error for pharmacy), 'taking a pills' (pluralization error), and 'portine' (spelling error for portion). Despite these inaccuracies, the vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey the intended meaning, matching the Band 6 descriptor.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing structures like conditional clauses, relative clauses, and introductory participial phrases (e.g., 'setting a daily goal to eat such as eating at least one portine...'). There are frequent errors in grammar and punctuation, particularly involving articles ('having balanced diet', 'for whole week'), subject-verb agreement or noun-verb confusion ('people tend to buy', 'vitamin pills is better', 'it help people absord'), and preposition usage. Nevertheless, these errors rarely impede communication, allowing the reader to follow the arguments without major difficulty, aligning comfortably with a Band 6 score.

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