Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-09-26

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some university students want to learn about other subjects in addition to their main subjects. Others believe it is more important to give all their time and attention to studying for a qualification. Discuss both these views and give your opinion. Give reasons for your answer and include relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Learning has become one of the fundamental aspects in todays life. learning is very important for the students to have better employment to satisfy their needs. While learning is primary aspect in many universities, besides that student tend to learn other subjects regarding their main course. Many people believe that student must focus on their respective subject to become highly skilled and qualified in choiced fields.

While I believe that students should give their priority on main course to be qualified in respective career choice. Nowadays, students are completing different degree at once which makes their academic life pressured and end up getting nothing valuable in return. Most importantly, students are learning without having a clear future or goals which badly affects their main course. Also ones must be fully prepared what to do or how to handle academies course to be successfull rather than doing multiple subjects at once.

On other hand, the interest of studying other subject besides their main course is common on students. It is likely to happen among many students because of not handling difficulties in proper way which they are studying currently. While others, want to explore many topics at once because of their mentality to learn various subject topics at once. Learning variety of subjects can't can't be prohibited, but it can be well-managed by by forming new rules and regulation: for example:

teacher and administratives can take monthly test on both courses to check that if he / she is eligible or not to pursue both at once.

Secondly, there are huge majority of people saying that one's must focus on their main course, which I also agree with this statement. If any of student want to be successful, they must focus on one thing. Also with many subjects can form distraction on heir particular goals and there is no guarantee of 2-3 jobs at once despite having qualified in many subjects.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both views—studying multiple subjects versus focusing solely on a main course—and provides a clear personal opinion. The writer's position is maintained throughout the essay. However, some ideas are underdeveloped or lack depth, such as the generalisation that students completing multiple degrees end up getting nothing valuable. While the prompt asks for discussion of learning other subjects in addition to the main qualification, the student often frames this as doing multiple entire degrees at once, which slightly shifts the focus of the task. Nevertheless, the main arguments are identifiable and supported by examples like administrative monthly tests, aligning with the requirements for a Band 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement and attempts a logical progression of ideas through a standard introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used, though paragraph divisions and transitions are sometimes clumsy, as seen in the fragmented sentence structure in the second body paragraph. Cohesive devices are used, but they are occasionally mechanical or repetitive (e.g., starting multiple sentences with 'While', 'Secondly', or 'Also'). Referencing is also a bit unclear at times, such as 'ones must be fully prepared' and 'he / she is eligible'. While logical organisation is evident, the faults in cohesion place this text securely within the Band 6.0 descriptor.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common lexical items such as 'fundamental aspects', 'eligible', and 'administratives'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors, including 'todays life', 'choiced fields', 'academies course', 'successfull', and 'heir' instead of 'their'. Collocations are sometimes awkward, such as 'form distraction on heir particular goals'. While these lexical inaccuracies and spelling errors are frequent, they do not severely impede overall communication, reflecting the characteristics of a Band 5.5 to 6.0 level.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some capability with subordinate clauses ('While learning is primary aspect...', 'If any of student want to be successful...'). However, the text contains a high frequency of grammatical errors and awkward phrasing, such as missing articles ('Learning is very important for the students', 'primary aspect'), incorrect prepositions or pluralisation ('other subject', 'various subject topics'), and punctuation issues (unnecessary colons and hyphens). Subject-verb agreement is also problematic in places ('student tend', 'there are huge majority'). These errors cause some difficulty for the reader at times, placing the grammatical control at a Band 5.0.

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

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