Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-08-20

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Nowadays, many medical research projects are funded by private companies. In your opinion, do you think that research should be carried by private companies, individuals or government?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 5.5)

In my opinion , research projects can be funded by any of them , either private companies or individuals either governments. This is because we can not judge someone's knowledge on the basis of the category of division. We can see a talented man from a private sector or from government sector or even an individual.

I believe funding must be done on the basis of the knowledge and the ideas they have .

For example , if consider NASA and SPACEX , both are from different sectors. Whereas , seeing their work towards the rockets , we can find SPACEX as a clear winner. This is because as being a private company it shown more profits by reusing the spacecraft's waste but NASA failed to do it . In this case we can say funding a private company would help a lot to the country . But this is not true in all the cases because NASA is the first organization in the world to launch spacecraft into the space . Here the idea of developing a spacecraft into the space is an excellent idea because it is an innovative idea where no one got . In such cases government will win with no competition .

Apart from public and private companies , we can even find many talented individuals in the society . This a man from New York had hacked the controlling systems of NASA as well as SPACEX at a time with an ordinary laptop, in such a case funding on the individual would help the company and the country a lot.

IN conclusion, funding right talented and skilled man is important in any of the research projects rather than going by the category of division.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt by discussing the roles of private companies, government, and individuals in research. However, the development of ideas is somewhat superficial. The comparison between NASA and SpaceX is a good attempt at illustration, but the reasoning regarding 'reusing spacecraft's waste' is factually unclear and lacks depth. The example of the individual hacker is somewhat tangential and does not strongly support the argument regarding medical research funding. The position is clear, but the arguments are not fully extended or supported with sufficient academic rigor, leading to a tendency to over-generalize the criteria for funding.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the progression of ideas. However, the use of cohesive devices is somewhat mechanical and occasionally inaccurate, such as the transition 'In this case we can say' and 'Apart from public and private companies'. The referencing is sometimes unclear, particularly in the final paragraph where the connection between the hacker example and the conclusion is weak. Paragraphing is present but could be more effectively used to separate distinct arguments more clearly.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks the precision and sophistication required for higher bands. There is some repetition of basic terms like 'ideas', 'sector', and 'company'. Some word choices are slightly unnatural or imprecise, such as 'category of division' and 'right talented and skilled man'. While the meaning is generally clear, the range of vocabulary is limited, and there is little evidence of less common lexical items or idiomatic collocations that would demonstrate a higher level of proficiency.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are several grammatical errors, including issues with articles ('into the space'), subject-verb agreement ('it shown more profits'), and awkward phrasing ('funding right talented and skilled man'). Punctuation is also inconsistent, with unnecessary spaces before commas. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they occur frequently enough to demonstrate a lack of control over more complex structures, keeping the score in the mid-range.

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

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