Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-09-17

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 5.0)

It is argued that,in several cultures children are told that they achieve everything if they effort hard enough. There are some advantages and disadvantages of this saying such as children take pressure, psychological issues and socially disconnected as well as they set their goals and encourage themeselves. From my opinion, drawbacks are more then advantages.

One the one hand, there is a drawback of the achievment pressure is that students take alot of pressure and avoid eating sleeping which directly effect their health and mental peace. For imstance, if school children often listen about hard work give theme high score they mostly skip their meal and study all day and night. In the result, thety become frustrate on their exam day and may be they become ill because lack of sleep and diet.

Onthe other hand, those youngsters who take pressure of hard work mostly they disconnected from other social activities as well as their social network. They isolated them and focus only goal achievement. They should avoid family gatherings and cut off from their family. This could bad effect on their behaviour and they also have anger issue because soc

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The student addresses the prompt by discussing both advantages and disadvantages, and a position is stated in the introduction indicating that drawbacks outweigh advantages. However, the response is incomplete and cuts off mid-sentence due to being significantly under length, containing only 191 words against the 250-word minimum requirement. Furthermore, the ideas are under-developed, particularly regarding the advantages which are barely mentioned in the introduction and undeveloped in the body paragraphs. Because the task is partially addressed and underdeveloped, this falls under Band 5.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay has a basic structure with an introduction and two body paragraphs, although the second body paragraph cuts off abruptly. There are some cohesive devices used, such as 'On the one hand' and 'On the other hand', but referencing and logical progression are frequently faulty (e.g., 'In the result, thety become frustrate'). Paragraphing is attempted, but the overall organization lacks smooth progression and clear logical links between sentences due to dense grammatical and lexical errors. This performance aligns with Band 5 descriptors.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is limited and basic, with frequent word choice and spelling errors that occasionally impede understanding (e.g., 'effort hard' instead of 'try hard', 'achievment', 'themeelves', 'thety', 'frustrate'). The student attempts to use less common items like 'psychological issues', 'socially disconnected', and 'goal achievement', but these attempts are marred by inaccurate collocations and morphological errors. The lexical range is minimally adequate for the task, fitting Band 5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but control is weak. There are frequent grammatical errors, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('drawbacks are more then advantages'), preposition errors ('take pressure of hard work'), and incorrect verb forms ('they isolate them' instead of 'they isolate themselves'). Punctuation and spelling are also problematic throughout the response. Because frequent errors cause some difficulty for the reader, this warrants a Band 5 score.

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

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