Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-09-14
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)
In certain society, youngsters are often belief if they put sufficient efforts,they can achieve any goal. There are both advantages and disadvantages of giving youngsters this mindset.
On the one hand, this mindset built work ethic and determination. When youth belief in hard work they do not give up, while facing problems.They learn discipline and dedication. Apart from this, they understand failure is a temporary setback rather than permanent limitations. For example, many professional athlete always talked about their struggle and not giving up in early days, that will show good outcome. There is a line about winners, winners are who, try one more time after failure.
On the other hand, it create phycologycal pressure and ignore realities. Some Youngster's can not handle pressure and got depressed. It's not guaranteed that hard work always pays off and show good outcome. After that Youngster's not handle pressure and children lead to server self-doubt.
Moreover, children may secrify health and personal life, failure lead to self blame and create pressure. For example, some children want to become a professional athlete, but limited physical ablilites and lack of opportunities lead to failure. Sometimes, youngsters pay to much attention in carrier and giving not much time to their relationship, that cause of mental health and love life of youngsters.
In conclusion, encourage children to do hard work and belief in own self is make them disciplined and hardworking, but it also thought that efforts not always good outcome. So, make a balance in both aspects is good for children.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The response addresses the prompt by discussing both the advantages and disadvantages of telling children they can achieve anything. A clear position is established in the introduction and maintained throughout the essay. The ideas are relevant, such as building a strong work ethic as an advantage and experiencing psychological pressure as a disadvantage. However, some arguments remain somewhat under-developed and repetitive, particularly regarding stress and mental health in the third paragraph. Examples provided, such as professional athletes facing struggles, are slightly generalised. Overall, the response meets the core requirements of Task Achievement and corresponds well to a Band 6.0 descriptor.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with clear paragraphing, dividing the introduction, advantages, disadvantages, and conclusion into distinct sections. Transitional phrases like 'On the one hand' and 'On the other hand' are employed to guide the reader. However, cohesion is at times mechanical or faulty, and referencing is occasionally unclear (e.g., 'After that Youngster's not handle pressure and children lead to server self-doubt'). Paragraph transitions lack smooth progression, and some sentences feel disjointed. These issues place the response firmly in the Band 5.5 to 6.0 range, warranting a Band 6.0 for overall coherence and paragraph structure despite local mechanical lapses.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The student attempts less common vocabulary such as 'work ethic', 'determination', 'temporary setback', and 'psychological pressure'. However, there are frequent word-choice errors, incorrect forms, and spelling mistakes throughout the text (e.g., 'society' instead of 'societies', 'belief' instead of 'believe', 'phycylogical' instead of 'psychological', 'ablilites', 'secrify', 'carrier'). While these errors are noticeable and sometimes strain the reader, the range of vocabulary used is minimally adequate for the task, allowing the main ideas to be understood. This aligns with the Band 5.0 descriptors.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The essay uses a mix of simple and some complex sentence forms, but grammatical accuracy is weak. There are frequent errors in verb tense, subject-verb agreement, and sentence structure (e.g., 'youngsters are often belief if they put sufficient efforts,they can achieve', 'create phycologycal pressure', 'failure lead to self blame'). Punctuation errors, such as missing spaces after commas and incorrect capitalisation, are also common. Although some sentences are formed correctly, the density of errors causes occasional difficulty for the reader, fitting the Band 5.0 criteria.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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