Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-18

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people spend most of their lives living close to where they were born.

What might be the reasons for this?

What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

 

Student answer (Band 4.5)

In this contemporary era, this opinion is divided on whether leisure activities like art and music doesnot hold any value in today's education in instituitions over the conventional subjects like mathematics and science. I am highly opinionated towards the former notion as these events are necessary in shaping the career path of a student.

Firstly, the extra curricular activities hold significant value in school life of the students. During the initial years of the school, performance in these activities along with other academic subjects like science and mathematics determine the interest of a learner, helping in understanding what they actually want to pursue in their life. For example, If Justin beiber had been not introduced to singing as a child, we wouldn't have been able to enjoy his music. Moreover, these leisure activities help in significant ways to grow cognitive abilities, social interaction and personal development.

Secondly, the school should hold these activities as students will get some off time from the regular academic subjects, which students are taught all around year. As a result, pupils stay encouraged to come school daily and stay focused on the regular academics. For example, children are always in cheerful mood whenever leisure activities takes place in school premises, be it sports annual day or any other auxillary event.

To encapsulate, it is quite important to hold these leisure activities in the school rather than focusing only on the theoretical studies, as to develop practical skills and overall development.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 2.0

The student has completely misunderstood the prompt, writing an essay about whether leisure activities like art and music should be valued in education over conventional subjects like mathematics and science. The prompt actually asks about the reasons, advantages, and disadvantages of living close to where one was born. Because the response is entirely off-topic regarding the actual task prompt, it fails to address the requirements. Furthermore, as noted in the length check, the response is 245 words, which falls short of the 250-word minimum, leading to an additional penalty under Task Achievement. Consequently, the score reflects a fundamental failure to respond to the set question.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

Despite the severe off-topic nature of the content, the essay maintains a basic logical structure with clear paragraphing. The student uses standard sequencing markers such as 'Firstly', 'Secondly', and 'To encapsulate' to guide the reader through the paragraphs. However, paragraphing is somewhat basic and cohesive relationships are sometimes mechanical. Referencing is generally clear, but the overall progression is limited by the lack of relevance to the actual prompt. Nevertheless, looking purely at the organizational framework deployed by the writer, a Band 5.0 is appropriate.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary for expressing general ideas, using terms such as 'contemporary era', 'conventional subjects', 'career path', and 'cognitive abilities'. However, there are notable word-choice errors and awkward collocations, such as 'opinion is divided on whether... doesnot hold any value' and 'auxillary event' (spelled with a double l error). The range is limited and repetitive in places, but communication of the student's unintended arguments is generally clear enough to be understood.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as conditional structures ('If Justin beiber had been not introduced...') and relative clauses. However, there are frequent grammatical errors and punctuation slips throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('activities... doesnot hold'), awkward phrasing ('had been not introduced'), and capitalization errors ('Justin beiber'). While these errors do not completely obscure the meaning, they occur frequently enough to prevent the writing from achieving a higher band.

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

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