Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-04

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)

Healthy diet is always a prior advice of the doctor to lead a healty lifestyle but with passage of time the contamination,use of fertilizers and processing of sources have a bad impact on the nutritions in the fruits, vegetables as well as cereals and dairy products.Another reason is hectic worklife that refrain the working people to follow a routie diet plan.Due to this people felt the need of taking vitamin pills along with a healthy diet .I will explain both reasons in the following paragraphs.

Firstly, In old days everythig was done in more natural way and manual processes preferred over mechanical.However these days the food products come fully processed which detoriate most of the nurtients. Contamination in food products has been done widely all over the place to save few bucks. People are not getting enough iron and calcium,every second person has B12 deficiency these days.Vitamins pills are really expensive but to have a fulfilled diet people take supplements too.

Secondly, the working generation who stay away from their family gets barely sometime to prepare food. The workload and busy schedule affects the dietary habits extemely. To get rid of all the fatigue and nutrient deficiences they prefer to add vitamin pills as an health investment along with the diet they have.

In conclusion, I can say that it is a really wise decision to follow a healthy diet but these days the processed and contaminated food is not enough alone to give all the nutrients. To persuade people for not spending more money on vitamins pills the only advice i will give to include less processed and high quality of food.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt, discussing why some people spend money on vitamin pills—such as food contamination and hectic lifestyles—and suggesting ways to persuade them to improve their diet. However, some ideas are under-developed or lack full explanation. For instance, the second body paragraph briefly mentions that busy workers prefer vitamin pills as a health investment, but this point could have been extended with more specific examples. The position is generally clear throughout the text, but the final suggestion to include 'less processed and high quality of food' is somewhat simplistic and lacks specific persuasive strategies, which prevents the response from achieving a higher score.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction and conclusion, and the body paragraphs are separated into distinct topics. However, the progression of ideas is sometimes hindered by mechanical or faulty cohesive devices. For instance, referencing is occasionally unclear, and transitional phrases like 'Firstly' and 'Secondly' are used rather rigidly. Paragraphing is utilised sufficiently, but internal cohesion within paragraphs could be smoother to establish a more seamless progression of thought from the reasons for buying pills to the proposed solutions.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The writer demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common lexical items such as 'contamination', 'deficiency', and 'fatigue'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors that reflect a limited control of collocations and word forms, such as 'detoriate' instead of deteriorate, 'nurtients' instead of nutrients, and 'routie diet plan' instead of routine diet plan. While these errors do not severely impede communication, they restrict the score because precision and control of less common vocabulary are inconsistent.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some ability to connect ideas. However, there are frequent errors in grammar and punctuation, particularly regarding article use, subject-verb agreement, and prepositions. Examples include 'Healthy diet is always a prior advice of the doctor', 'everythig was done in more natural way', and 'the only advice i will give to include'. Additionally, missing spaces after punctuation marks and incorrect verb forms appear throughout the text. These frequent errors require some effort from the reader to interpret, placing the grammar firmly in the mid-range category.

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