Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-08-17

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people say that in all levels of education, from primary schools to universities, too much time is spent on learning facts and not enough on learning practical skills.

Do you agree or disagree?

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

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

It is an undeniable truth that education plays a vital role in everyone's life. Few individuals believe that heavy amount of time is spent on learning theoretical knowledge and learning facts as compared to practical skills throughout all level of children's education starting from primary schools to universities. I strongly disagree to the given notion and i shall give justifications in the upcoming paragraphs.

To begin with, Learning practical skill is more valuable rather than having theoretical knowledge. First of all, schools and colleges focuses more on practical skills for example, in the time of AI revaluation professors knows that theory based knowledge is replaceable while skills are not, and if student have knowledge of practical stuff, it becomes easy for them to get the jobs very easily. Secondly, there is a lot of competition in between schools and colleges to prove their ability and their success ration, they want to do their best which can be done by giving practical knowledge.

Moreover, governments also want to have more educated people in their country, they provide huge amount of funding into schools and universities just to teach the new and important skills.

However, there are few institutions where professors have not enough knowledge of skills, so there they mainly focus on teaching facts. In addition, in some ways learning facts is also important because it connects children with history and their roots.

To conclude, I believe nowadays, skills are more important to showcase your knowledge and to earn decent amount money in the life ,whereas having theory based knowledge is also precious to solve some issues related to life and history.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt, but the position is contradictory. You state in the introduction that you 'strongly disagree' with the notion that too much time is spent on facts, yet your body paragraphs argue that practical skills are more valuable and that schools should focus on them. This inconsistency makes your overall stance unclear. While you provide some relevant ideas regarding AI and job readiness, the development is somewhat superficial. To improve, ensure your arguments consistently support your thesis statement throughout the essay and provide more specific, concrete examples to illustrate your points rather than relying on generalisations.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organised into paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the structure. However, the use of cohesive devices is sometimes mechanical or misused. For example, the transition 'To begin with' is followed by a paragraph that actually supports the idea that practical skills are important, which contradicts your stated disagreement. Referencing is occasionally unclear, and the logical progression between ideas is hindered by the conflicting arguments. Using a wider range of linking words (e.g., 'consequently', 'furthermore', 'nevertheless') would improve the flow, provided they are used to logically connect your arguments rather than just acting as signposts.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, but it lacks the precision and variety required for a higher band. You rely on basic phrasing such as 'heavy amount of time', 'practical stuff', and 'decent amount money'. There are also some awkward collocations, such as 'AI revaluation' (likely meaning 'revolution') and 'success ration' (likely meaning 'ratio'). To reach a higher band, you should aim to use more sophisticated vocabulary and ensure that your word choices are accurate and appropriate for an academic context.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally impede clarity. Common issues include subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'professors knows', 'schools and colleges focuses'), missing articles (e.g., 'in the time of AI'), and punctuation errors, such as the lowercase 'i' and inconsistent spacing. While the meaning is generally understandable, the frequency of these errors prevents the writing from reaching a higher band. Focusing on proofreading for basic subject-verb agreement and article usage would significantly improve the accuracy of your writing.

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

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