Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-11-13

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In some cultures, children are often told that they can achieve anything if they try hard enough. What are the advantages and disadvantages of giving children this message?

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Telling children they can achieve anything with enough hardwork is a common beliefe in many cultures. While this trend has several significant advantages, it also presents several notable disadvantages.

There are a number of signigicant advantages of believe in hardwork. One of the primary advantages of believe in hardwork is that it boosts confidence, children feel more self-assured that and are less worried about either their task is easy or hard. By believing effort, leads to success helps kids to keep going when things get enough. Another compelling advantage that it inspires ambition, self-efficacy, and a willingness to tackle to new challenges. For instance, Children can feel more confident to face any challenging situation.

Despite these advantages , there are several drawbacks associated with over confident on effort. to begin with, hardwork does not garantee success in every situation, which can leade disappoinment. Another key disadvantages is falling despite maximum effortcan triger anxiety, burnout and deep despair. In addition, when goals are missed, children may blame themeselves or lose hope for future challenges. For example, After a lot of hardworks when results can not meet the expectation they lose their confidence and never want to doa new work.

In conclusion, believe on hardwork can achieve anything has several advantages , such as boost confidance whereas the number of disadvantages are short on list.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both sides of the question and give a relevant overall view: effort can build confidence and ambition, but failure despite effort may lead to disappointment, anxiety, or self-blame. However, the advantages are not fully explained, and the examples mostly repeat the general point rather than showing how the message affects children. The conclusion is also unclear: “the number of disadvantages are short on list” does not establish which side you consider more significant. The response contains 223 words, so it does not meet the 250-word minimum. Develop each main idea with a clear explanation and a specific example, and finish with a direct summary of the balance between the benefits and drawbacks.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response has a clear overall arrangement: an introduction, a paragraph on advantages, a paragraph on disadvantages, and a conclusion. This makes the main progression easy to follow, and signposts such as “Despite these advantages” help distinguish the two sides. To make the organisation more effective, ensure each paragraph develops its ideas in a logical sequence. In the advantages paragraph, several points—confidence, persistence, ambition, and self-efficacy—are crowded together without clear explanation of their relationships. Some linking is also awkward, as in “By believing effort, leads to success helps kids.” The conclusion does not clearly connect back to the discussion. Use fewer, more precise transitions and build each paragraph around one or two explained points.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use some relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “self-assured,” “ambition,” “self-efficacy,” “anxiety,” and “burnout.” These choices show an attempt to go beyond basic wording. However, the range is limited by repeated use of “hardwork,” “confidence,” and “advantages,” while several spelling and word-choice errors make the writing less clear: “beliefe,” “signigicant,” “garantee,” and “disappoinment.” Some phrases are also unnatural, such as “over confident on effort” and “falling despite maximum effort.” Aim for accurate collocations and vary repeated terms—for example, refer to “sustained effort” or “perseverance.” Proofreading spelling and choosing natural word combinations would make your ideas easier to understand.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentences, including a contrastive opening with “While” and a conditional idea about effort and success. However, many sentences contain grammatical errors, and some are difficult to follow. For example, “children feel more self-assured that and are less worried about either their task is easy or hard” has faulty clause structure, while “By believing effort, leads to success helps kids” does not form a complete grammatical pattern. There are also problems with agreement, verb forms, articles, and punctuation, as in “Another key disadvantages is” and the inconsistent capitalisation after full stops. Practise building clear subject–verb sentences first, then add subordinate clauses using accurate connectors such as “whether” and “because.”

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.