Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-09-30

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 some cultures, people think if we do hard work we will achieve anything we want. In some circumstances it is good and in some way it is not advisable.

It is true that in many cultures people think hard work is the key to success and it is a true quote because if you want to achieve anything in your life you have to work hard and keep working on your goals. In some countries people only want to make their children doctors and engeniers and always say them to work hard and study, children work hard and achieve their required scores. In sports we have to work hard like maintaining our weight, eating healthy diet, disciplined our life, having good sleep cycle and avoid eating fast food.

After doing all the hardwork we are able to meet our desire success, but in some places after doing a lot of hard work we do not achieve any thing, may be due to our bad luck or some other consequences like some teachers have personal grudge with their students, coaches become personal with players, and many more things which affects the mental health of children. Always told your children work hard but do not neglect their mental and physical health for anything.

In conclusion, I strongy agree that if we work hard and tell our children to do same, because it have many advantages which help them in their future and become successful in their life.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of telling children they can achieve anything through hard work. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited and repetitive, particularly in the body paragraphs where examples like becoming a doctor or maintaining a diet are briefly mentioned without deep extension. Furthermore, the length requirement is not met, as the response contains 246 words, falling just short of the 250-word minimum. This results in a slight penalty to the overall task achievement score. To reach a higher band, the student needs to fully develop their arguments with more elaborate explanations and examples, while strictly ensuring the minimum word count is satisfied.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The essay has a basic structure with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, showing an overall attempt at organization. However, the progression of ideas is sometimes disjointed. For instance, the transition between discussing the positive aspects of hard work and the negative impacts on mental health feels abrupt within the third paragraph. Cohesive devices are used, but they are often basic or slightly repetitive (e.g., 'In some cultures', 'It is true that'). Paragraphing is present, but paragraph 3 is overly dense and combines multiple distinct points. Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as the pronoun use in 'Always told your children'. Clearer logical links between sentences and better paragraph separation would significantly improve the coherence of the writing.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, but it tends to be basic and repetitive. The student relies heavily on common words like 'hard work', 'children', and 'achieve'. There are several word choice and collocation inaccuracies, such as 'engeniers' (engineers), 'doing hard work' (working hard), 'disciplined our life', and 'desire success' (desired success). While attempts are made to use less common vocabulary, inaccuracies persist and spelling errors like 'engeniers', 'strongy', and 'hardwork' detract from the lexical quality. The vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey the message, but lacks the precision, flexibility, and range required for higher band levels.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, though complex structures often contain errors. There are frequent grammatical and punctuation issues throughout the text, such as run-on sentences ('In some cultures, people think if we do hard work we will achieve anything we want. In some circumstances it is good and in some way it is not advisable.'), imperative shifts ('Always told your children'), and missing auxiliary verbs or incorrect prepositions. Errors such as 'which affects' instead of 'affect' also occur due to subject-verb agreement slips. Although these errors rarely completely impede communication, their frequency prevents the writing from achieving a higher band score.

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