Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-05

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)

Many people used to follow things that are common in their culture regrading counseling thier minors or making children to follow things which are beyond their limits. Many people say that a child can achieve their goal if they do hard work, but in some culture they are forced to do hard work which can have positive and negative effects both.

There are many advantages for a child if they start working hard from their childhood. It make them a strong and better person for the future, and they can handle any hardship if they face in the future. Many successful people nowadays, have struggled hard in their young age to achieve the things which they own. Talking about my father who used to share stories, how he struggle in his young age. The motivation given to my father from his parents make him the successful person, and is the example what he owns now. Telling the children to work hard in their younger age would be beneficial for them in the future.

On the other side, asking the child everytime to work hard will put negative impact on them. They will put their extra effort to achieve small task, which will exhaust them rapidly. Many children are not capable of doing the hard work, and they used to feel burden of task. They try to skip any work, which is important for them to do. They will not do task with focus and try to put more effort on less important tasks. This will also make them less smart, and problem which need smartness to solve. They will struggle in those problem.

It can be concluded, their should be a level of balance in which a child is asked to achieve things. They should be provided with good conseling and a child capability should not be ignored. The hard work is the important to reach goal but children should be told how they can have those things by using different strategies in correct way.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the advantages and disadvantages of telling children they can achieve anything through hard work. However, some ideas are more fully developed than others. The advantages section relies heavily on a single personal anecdote about the writer's father rather than broader societal or psychological arguments, which leaves certain points under-developed. To reach a higher level, the response would need to extend and fully develop all its main ideas with more generalised, well-supported reasoning rather than leaning on personal narrative.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear stance split across paragraphs, featuring an introduction, body paragraphs for advantages and disadvantages, and a conclusion. However, cohesion is at times mechanical or faulty. For instance, transitional phrases like 'On the other side' and 'It can be concluded, their should be' feel slightly rigid, and referencing can be imprecise, such as when pronouns like 'they' and 'them' become occasionally ambiguous in the third paragraph. Paragraphing is used, but smoother logical progression and more natural referencing throughout would elevate the flow of the writing.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is minimally adequate for the task, providing an understandable range of common words. The writer attempts some less common vocabulary, such as 'hardship', 'strategy', and 'exhaust', but these attempts are accompanied by noticeable word-choice and spelling errors that occasionally cause difficulty for the reader. Examples of lexical slips include 'regrading' instead of regarding, 'thier' instead of their, 'everytime' instead of every time, and awkward phrasing like 'doing the hard work' and 'make them less smart'. To improve, the writer needs to expand their range of precise collocations and ensure accurate spelling and word formation.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response displays a limited range of sentence structures, primarily relying on simple forms alongside some basic attempts at complex sentences, such as 'Many people say that a child can achieve their goal if they do hard work'. These attempts at complex structures are frequently faulty. There are noticeable errors in verb forms, articles, subject-verb agreement, and prepositions inside grammatical patterns, such as 'children to follow things', 'if they face in the future', 'their should be', and 'hard work is the important to reach goal'. These frequent errors occasionally cause difficulty for the reader, though the core meaning usually remains decipherable.

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