Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-09-18

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 5.0)

Nowdays, many medical research projects are funded by private compnies. some people belive that medical research should be done by private compnies, while other link that individuals or the government should do it. In my opinion, the government should be mainly responsible for medical research.

Firstly,private companies can play an important role in medical research. They can develop new medicines and treatments quickly . For example,pharmaceutical companies spend millions of dollars on finding medicine for different diseases that can give them more financial benefits .

Secondly, I belive that governments should provide most of the funding for medical research. Medical research is important for the health of the whole population, and the government has a responsibility to protect its citizen

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response4.0
Coherence and Cohesion5.0
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.0

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The response fails to meet the minimum word count requirement of 250 words, stopping abruptly at only 120 words. Consequently, the ideas are severely underdeveloped, and the conclusion is completely missing. Although the student attempts to address the prompt by mentioning private companies and government funding, the severe brevity means the task is only addressed partially. In terms of Task Achievement descriptors, this performance aligns closely with Band 4 because the response is too short to fully develop a position or adequately explore the reasons behind who should fund medical research.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The text shows an attempt at logical organization, utilizing basic transition markers such as 'Firstly' and 'Secondly' to structure the response. However, cohesion is hampered by the abrupt ending and the lack of a concluding paragraph. Paragraphing is also problematic, as the second main body paragraph is left unfinished. While referencing is generally understandable, the overall structure lacks the progression expected at higher bands. Therefore, the coherence and cohesion correspond to a Band 5, as there is some basic organization, but the overall progression is cut short and cohesive devices are limited.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student uses a limited range of vocabulary adequate for basic communication, including terms like 'medical research', 'private companies', and 'pharmaceutical companies'. However, there are notable spelling errors throughout the text, such as 'Nowdays', 'compnies', 'belive', and 'citizen' (missing a plural 's'). Word choice is mostly functional rather than ambitious, with occasional awkward phrasing like 'other link that'. Because the vocabulary is sufficient for minimal task execution but marred by repetitive errors and a restricted range, a Band 5 is appropriate.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as 'some people belive that medical research should be done by private compnies, while other link that individuals or the government should do it.' However, the text contains frequent grammatical and punctuation errors, including missing articles, subject-verb agreement issues ('citizen' instead of 'citizens'), and capitalization errors at the start of sentences ('Firstly,private'). Despite these flaws, the meaning remains mostly clear to the reader. This performance reflects the descriptors for Band 5, featuring a limited range of structures and frequent errors.

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

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