Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-08-30

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)

In recent years, the thought regarding education are very different nowadays. Spending time for on learning academically from elementary to college are too much while knowing practical skills did not have enough time to learn.

In my own point of views, learning basic skills are very important in different ways. First, it needs shorter time to understand because most of the time you only focus on one skill you need to specialist. Second, you do not need to spend a lot of fund due to learning this skill usually need less tuition fee on universities and other traning center. For example, local government here in the Philippines give a free special skill training and seminars coming from TESDA for the children without any financial capabilty to go to universities and colleges. Last, companies nowadays prefer to hire the graduates on special skills because industrie can offer them a much lower salary than graduates of universities and college with the same job specification.

Knowing the important of basic skill is not only important for adults but also for our younger generation. In instance, they will know how to properly manage their allowances .Furthermore, they can be knowledgeable on basic cooking so that they can help there parents.

In the future, I think local government and private sector must reach hand to hand in expanding the system on teaching practical skills. They must build more and better traning centers and schools that focus on teaching basic skills not only for the younger generations but also for the adults.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt by taking a clear position in favor of prioritizing practical skills. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited. While you provide reasons such as cost-effectiveness and employability, the arguments are brief and could benefit from more detailed explanation or deeper analysis. For instance, the point about companies preferring graduates with special skills is a strong argument, but it is not fully explored in terms of the broader impact on the economy or society. The response covers all parts of the task, but the depth of the arguments remains at a basic level, which is characteristic of a Band 5.5 or 6.0 response.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, which helps the reader follow your argument. You use basic cohesive devices like 'First', 'Second', and 'Furthermore' to link your ideas. However, the use of these devices is sometimes mechanical, and the flow between sentences is occasionally interrupted by grammatical errors. Referencing is generally clear, but the transition between the introduction and the body paragraphs could be smoother. Overall, the structure is coherent, but the management of cohesion is not yet flexible or sophisticated enough for a higher band score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

Your vocabulary is adequate for the task, allowing you to express your ideas clearly. You use some topic-specific terms like 'tuition fee', 'financial capability', and 'job specification'. However, there are several instances of word-choice errors and awkward phrasing, such as 'the thought regarding education are very different' and 'you only focus on one skill you need to specialist'. These errors occasionally hinder the precision of your writing. To improve, you should focus on learning collocations and ensuring that words are used in their correct grammatical form (e.g., 'specialist' vs 'specialize').

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors throughout. Common issues include subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'the thought... are', 'learning basic skills are'), incorrect preposition usage, and awkward sentence construction. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to be noticeable and require the reader to re-read certain parts to understand the intended meaning. You should focus on proofreading for basic agreement errors and refining your use of complex sentence structures to improve accuracy.

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

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