Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-09-26

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)

In many nations children are guided that if they try hard, they can achive any milstone. if children believe in this guidence their confidence can inceases to

set big goals and work hard for to make it possible. However it can lead to excessive stress and sometimes cause disappointment if unable to get desired results.

if children could learn from their society, that they can achieve anything if they try hard. it can lead to significant increase in their confidence to dream for

an ambitious goal, which will get them to work hard for the goal. this could be more impactful for underprevilage children who lack resources.

because poeple work hard when they are confident about something they will get. Additionally children

will have this message for the rest of their life and it can create a very competent nation.

Beliving in such a highly self reliant isolated concept can become a reason of major stress and pressure for kids, because success does not demand only hard work

but being mentally healthy and favor of luck does influence our success. Additionally children can be disappointed if they wrok hard and did not get desired

results. for example indian students not getting admision in their desired univeristy lead to extreem depression and few student have

committed sucide in past.

In concluion, children being told to believe if they try hard they will get anything. believing in this concept, children can get signifincant confidence to

dream for big goals and work hard to achive them, however there are some drawbacks such as axcessive stress and pressure in the early life and he or she

may not hold it up.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses both the advantages and disadvantages of telling children they can achieve anything if they try hard enough, fulfilling the core prompt requirements. A clear position is established and maintained throughout the essay. The advantages, such as increased confidence and ambition, are discussed alongside the disadvantages, like severe pressure, stress, and potential disappointment. However, some ideas are slightly under-developed and would benefit from deeper elaboration and broader supporting arguments rather than relying on a single, extreme example regarding university admissions. Overall, the task is addressed adequately, aligning well with the Band 6 descriptors.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay displays an overall coherent arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs addressing each side of the prompt, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is utilised to separate distinct ideas, though some sentences within paragraphs are quite disjointed. Cohesive devices are used, but they are sometimes mechanical or repetitive, and punctuation errors occasionally disrupt the logical flow. Referencing can also be unclear in places, such as pronoun usage referring back to abstract concepts. Progression is discernible, but the connections between sentences could be smoothed out to achieve a higher band.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common words and phrases such as 'ambitious goal', 'underprivileged children', and 'competent nation'. However, there are numerous spelling and word choice errors throughout the text, including 'achive', 'milstone', 'guidence', 'inceases', 'prevelage', 'poeple', 'Beliving', and 'extreem'. These inaccuracies and frequent spelling slips indicate a Band 5 level, as they occasionally cause slight strain for the reader, even though the overall meaning remains clear.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some variety in structure. However, grammatical accuracy is weak, with frequent errors in punctuation, capitalization, subject-verb agreement, and preposition usage, such as 'work hard for to make it possible' and 'lead to extreem depression'. Run-on sentences and sentence fragments also occur, such as starting clauses with lowercase letters after periods. While communication is not completely impeded, the high frequency of errors places this response firmly in the Band 5 category.

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