Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-08-26

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)

It is widely acknowledge in some culture that children are often pressurized that they can achieve anything if they work hard enough. Although this development offers several notable advantages, it also presents certain drawbacks, which will be examined in this essay.

There are several compelling advantages associated with achieving anything in childhood, the most significant of which is it build a strong hardworking personality in a child. This is primarily because setting goal and trying best to achieve in very young age can build strong mindset, and make a child unstoppable to achieve anything in the life. For instance, grasping power of a child is very strong, if a child start learning unique skill in childhood, therefore it is easy to developed a skill because of the grasping power. Consequently, they can achieve something in life from that learned skill.

Despite this benefits, working hard in childhood to achieve something is not without its disadvantages. One major concern is children will not able to enjoy their childhood, as it lead to some responsibility to reach at higher level at very young age. A clear explanation of this can be seen in a children who has responsibility to fulfil or achieve their financial need at very young age, which is possible, while as a result the childhood of a children will convert into adulthood because of the burden of doing hard work in life at early age.

In conclusion, while working hard enough in childhood has potential to achieve anything in life, particularly in terms of building strong personality, it can also give rise to significance concern, such as not able to enjoy childhood.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The essay addresses both the advantages and disadvantages of the prompt. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited and repetitive. For instance, the argument regarding 'grasping power' is not clearly linked to the prompt's core theme of the 'anything is possible' mindset. The explanation of disadvantages is also slightly confusing, as it conflates 'working hard' with 'financial responsibility' and 'adulthood,' which does not fully explore the psychological impact of the message itself. To reach a higher band, you should provide more specific, logical examples that directly relate to the consequences of this specific belief system on a child's development.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into clear paragraphs, and there is a logical progression from the introduction to the body paragraphs and the conclusion. You use some cohesive devices, such as 'consequently,' 'despite this benefits,' and 'for instance.' However, some transitions are mechanical or slightly inaccurate, such as 'Despite this benefits' (should be 'these'). Referencing is occasionally unclear, particularly in the second body paragraph where the connection between the child's responsibility and the loss of childhood is somewhat disjointed. Improving the variety and accuracy of your linking words will help the flow of your writing.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, but it lacks the precision and range required for a higher band. You rely on some repetitive phrasing, such as 'achieve anything' and 'hard work.' There are also some collocation errors, such as 'widely acknowledge' (should be 'acknowledged') and 'significance concern' (should be 'significant'). While you attempt to use some topic-specific vocabulary, the overall range is limited. To improve, try to incorporate more sophisticated synonyms and collocations related to child development and psychological pressure to demonstrate a more flexible control of language.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally impede the reader's understanding. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues ('a children who has'), incorrect verb forms ('if a child start'), and missing articles or pluralization errors ('in some culture'). While these errors do not completely obscure the meaning, they are frequent enough to affect the overall fluency. To improve, focus on basic sentence construction, specifically ensuring that subjects and verbs agree and that nouns are correctly pluralized or singularized.

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

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