Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-09-12

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people say that advertising is extremely successful at persuading us to buy things. Other people think that advertising is so common that we no longer pay attention to it. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Nowadays, advertising is a popular medium for many organizaions. Some people believe that advertising have serious impact on us to buy things while other contend that it s now so common that we no longer pay attention to the advertising. This essay will discuss both views before discussing why I think that advertising can be a good thing before purchasing anything.

On the one hand, most of the organizations adopt the policy of advertising to promote their products. They believe advertising has great influence on individuals. It also a positve thing that a person should adopt. Before puchasing any items, people nowadays can watch the reviews of that particular product, so a person can decide if the products should buy or not. Even, advertising can make a person buy the same products various time. For instance, I always drink coca-cola because I grew up watching those ads related to his, so I always buy it instinctively. Also, advertsing can create a popular brand image by making a impactful videos.

On the other hand, the number of advertising are inreasing rapidly. Moreover, there are several videos can be found for just one product. For example, if we search onlline for Lux soap, we will find various ads which create confusion to the consumers to buy the product. Also, advertising can create awarness to the product and can encourage people to buy things that they may not need actually. For this, social media is playing an important role. This media are designed to engage people to watch videos according to their interests. Thus, people are nowadays are more aware that they no longer take risk by just watcing any unnecesaary product ads. Additionally, people are now so busy they do not have enough time to watch ads, which sometimes good for them to save money. For example, if a person is dedicatedly using social apps they might fall in the trap of watching ads, As a result, they end up buying some unnecessary products.

However, I believe advertising is good to some extend because it helps a person to compare the quality of products. In contrast, too much of watching ads could be a bad habits for us. So, sometimes it is good to avoid ads which will save our time and money.

Overall, advertising is successful for us in a certain point but in the long run it hampers our choice or creating problems. But to compare the products companies should make the qualitiful ads instead of making many videos just for one product.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both views—that advertising is extremely successful and that it is too common to notice—and provides a clear personal opinion. Ideas are generally relevant, but some points are under-developed or drift into related issues, such as product quality and consumer confusion. For instance, the discussion on Lux soap touches upon confusion caused by multiple ads, but this is not fully linked back to whether people pay attention or not. The writer takes a clear position throughout, as seen in the conclusion and introduction. While there is a tendency to over-generalise or state points without deep elaboration (e.g., 'advertising can make a person buy the same products various time'), all core requirements of the prompt are met.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay has a coherent overall arrangement with a clear paragraph structure, using standard transitions such as 'On the one hand', 'On the other hand', and 'However'. However, the logical progression within paragraphs is sometimes disrupted by repetitive ideas and awkward mechanical links, such as starting multiple sentences with 'Also'. Referencing is occasionally unclear, as seen in phrases like 'For this, social media is playing an important role', where the exact antecedent is muddy. Paragraphing is used sufficiently to separate the introduction, opposing views, personal opinion, and conclusion, but internal cohesion requires smoother transitions and more precise referencing to achieve a higher band.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms like 'organizaions', 'persuading', 'instinctively', and 'awareness'. However, there are numerous spelling errors ('organizaions', 'positve', 'puchasing', 'various time', 'impactful', 'inreasing', 'onlline', 'awarness', 'watcing', 'unnecesaary', 'extend', 'qualitiful') and odd word choices ('dedicatedly using', 'too much of watching ads'). While these errors do not severely impede communication because the context remains clear, they restrict the score to Band 5.5, as the frequent slips in spelling and collocation prevent the response from consistently demonstrating the more controlled lexical range required at Band 6.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional structures (e.g., 'if we search onlline... we will find'). However, grammatical control is inconsistent, with frequent errors in subject-verb agreement ('advertising have', 'the number of advertising are'), preposition usage ('impact on us to buy', 'at a certain point'), and tense or verb forms ('should buy or not', 'could be a bad habits'). There are also punctuation and run-on issues in places. Although simple structures are generally accurate and communication is rarely completely blocked, the frequency of errors across both simple and complex sentences places this response firmly at Band 5.0.

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