Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-09-13

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people believe that it is best to accept a bad situation, such as an unsatisfactory job or shortage of money. Others argue that it is better to try and improve such situations.

Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

There are some people that tend to beleive that accepting a bad situation, such as an unsatisfactory job or shortage of money while others may argue that rather than accepting such situautions it is better to work on improving them. I beleive that this situaution entirley depends on the factor of ones life.

In this world, when people face different situation they approach them very differently depending on the current situations they are facing. If someone is going through financial problems, their fist instinct is to earn some money rather than caring about the job being satisfactory for them, on the other hand if someone comes from a privileged background they will focus on getting a job that is not only staisfactory but brings them joy as well.

When other people view such situations the come up with their opinions and tell people to not accept their circumstances and try to improve the situation. I believe that besides the situatuion one is living in they should always try to improve and not just accept whatever is thrown at them. If someone is having some financial issues they should try to get back on tract as soon as possible but when the situation is tackeld they should try and improve, that will not only make their life better but will bring them peace as well.

Accepting any situation without making an effort to change is a behaviour is shown in people whom are not very motivated in life. They are just trying to spend it as easily as they can instead of putting in some work and making their situations better.

In conslusion, noone should accept situations like an unsatifactory job or shortage of money. Everyone should work to try to make it better

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses both views required by the prompt, discussing the perspective of accepting a difficult situation versus trying to improve it, and provides a clear personal opinion. The position is maintained throughout the essay. However, the ideas lack full extension and development, tending toward generalisations without deep elaboration. For instance, the distinction between someone facing financial issues and someone from a privileged background is introduced in the second paragraph but remains somewhat superficial. Similarly, the conclusion summarises the stance, but the overall depth of argumentation aligns best with Band 6, where relevant ideas are presented but remain slightly under-developed.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used to separate distinct ideas, such as individual circumstances versus motivational factors. However, cohesion at the sentence level is occasionally faulty or mechanical. For example, run-on structures and comma splices appear, as seen in the opening sentence where multiple clauses are joined improperly without adequate conjunctions or punctuation. Referencing and transitional phrasing are also basic, occasionally making the progression of ideas feel disjointed. These limitations place the response squarely at Band 5.5, rounded to 5.5 for IELTS reporting.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary for the task, successfully using topic-related terms such as 'unsatisfactory job', 'shortage of money', and 'financial problems'. However, there are numerous spelling errors throughout the response, including 'beleive', 'situautions', 'situaution', 'entirley', 'fist', 'staisfactory', 'tackeld', 'tract', and 'noone'. These spelling inaccuracies, along with repetitive phrasing and minor word-choice errors, indicate a limited range with noticeable errors, which restricts the lexical score to Band 5.0.

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. However, frequent grammatical and punctuation errors occur throughout the text. Examples include fragment and run-on constructions like 'There are some people that tend to beleive that accepting a bad situation... while others may argue that rather than accepting... it is better to work on improving them. I beleive that this situaution entirley depends on the factor of ones life.' Furthermore, relative clause errors ('whom are not very motivated') and agreement slips are present. While communication is not severely impeded, the high frequency of errors prevents the response from achieving a Band 6.

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

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