Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-14

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)

It is often believed that advertisements are extremely succesful at persuading us to purchase things. While others think that advertisments have become increasingly common and we are no longer persuaded by them. Some people are of the opinion that advertisements are extremely successful at convincing us to buy products because we often end up getting influenced by the way a product is promoted in advertisement. Others believe that we don't pay much attention to advertisements because they are so common is because we often get annoyed by watching too many advertisments. In my opinion, advertisements have a great influence in our purchases.

Advertisements are extremely successful at influencing us to buy products because advertisements are often made by keeping their target audience in mind. For example, people looking to buy clothes often notice the advertisements promoting clothes and get persuaded by looking at how the product has been marketed. They usually end up buying the clothes that they saw on the advertisement. I agree with this view because I got influenced by advertisements multiple times.

Moreover, others believe that advertisements are so common that we no longer pay attention to it, is because we often get annoyed by watching too many advertisments, and the target audience for those promotions may be different. For instance, advertisements while watching videos or movies is annoying and as a result, te audience may end up disliking the product. I believe that advertisements are surely becoming common but a lot of people do end up buying the product being promoted conciously or unconciously.

In conclusion, although advertisements have become very common, and some people don't pay attention to them anymore. But sometimes they end up remembering the product that they saw in the promtion. I agree that advertisements are extremely successful in persuading us to buy things.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You address both views and give a clear opinion that advertising remains influential, especially in the introduction and conclusion. The examples about clothing promotions and adverts interrupting videos are relevant, and your personal experience supports your position. However, the two sides are not developed equally: the first view receives a concrete explanation, while the claim that people ignore adverts is mainly linked to annoyance and a possible mismatch with the target audience. Explain more fully how repeated exposure or selective attention makes advertising less effective, and develop the contrast between the views. Your conclusion also introduces the idea that people remember products, but this point could be connected more clearly to your argument about whether remembering leads to buying. (The 10 words copied from the task prompt were not counted.)

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure, with an introduction, separate body paragraphs for the two views, and a conclusion. This gives the reader a coherent overall arrangement. However, progression within sentences and between ideas is sometimes unclear or mechanical. For example, the introduction begins, “While others think…,” as a fragment, and the next sentence repeats the same contrast. In the second body paragraph, “others believe… is because” makes the relationship between the view and its explanation difficult to follow. The conclusion’s “although” followed by “But” also creates an awkward connection. Use clearer topic sentences, avoid repeating the same point, and make each linking word express the relationship between ideas accurately.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to discuss the issue, including “target audience,” “promoted,” “influenced,” and “persuading.” These choices make your main meaning clear, and you attempt some variation through phrases such as “convincing us to buy products.” However, vocabulary is repetitive: “advertisements,” “common,” and “buy” recur frequently, while several expressions are imprecise or unnatural, such as “made by keeping their target audience in mind” and “watching too many advertisements.” Spelling errors, including “succesful,” “advertisments,” “conciously,” and “promtion,” also reduce accuracy. Build a wider set of precise terms for advertising and consumer behaviour, and proofread spelling and collocations so your ideas sound more natural.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including clauses with “because,” “while,” and “although,” and your meaning is generally understandable. However, complex structures are not consistently controlled. The opening “While others think…” is a dependent clause without a main clause, and “others believe … is because” creates a faulty sentence pattern. There are also agreement and reference problems, as in “advertisements … pay attention to it,” where the pronoun does not match the plural noun, and “the audience may end up disliking” follows the misspelled singular “te audience.” The final sentence uses “although” and “But” in a conflicting construction. Practise completing subordinate clauses and checking subject–verb and pronoun agreement; then proofread punctuation and sentence boundaries.

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