Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-09-17

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 6.5)

There is an ongoing debate over whether the factual knowledge is more essential than the practical one. While many people believe that educational institutes prioritize academic knowledge more than the interpersonal skills, there are some who disagrees. From my standpoint, although high academic education is necessary for securing the entry-level positions in high-qualified professions, to cope with real life challenges, everyone must be educated about the crucial life-skills.

One of the major reasons behind extra attention towards the academic knowledge in the education system is entry level jobs. To get high salary and white collar jobs, students not only require high grades in their courses but also require a certian level of qualification to even get chosen for the positions. To cite an example, in order to have a career in medical field or engineering sector, one must have a range of information about the terminology of the two sectors with a certain degree or bachelors even to work as a new comer. Therefore, by focusing on academic knowledge, educational bodies prepare students to learn thoroughly and score competitive grades to increase their chances of securing a high pay job.

On the contrary, a few individuals think that practical skills should be prioritized because of their benefits in the challenging circumstances. Interpersonal skills like interaction, collaboration, teamwork and patience are required to work efficiently in any professional setup. These skills assist the person to cope with emergency situations.To illustrate, in the busiest hour in a restaurant, all the employees work in a team, communicate with each other and work collabortively to produce a positive outcome. Thus, life skills assist people to deal with sudden and pressure situations in their lives especially at workplaces.

Taking everything into account, I finally conclude that despite the need of high academic grades for getting into a specific profession, the importance of practical skills can not be overlooked as these facilitiate individuals to be calm and perform their best even in the most pressurised circumstances.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 7.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both sides of the issue (learning facts versus practical skills) and clearly states a personal position in the introduction and conclusion. The ideas are relevant and supported with explanations and examples, such as the restaurant industry scenario and the medical or engineering fields. However, some arguments could be extended further to achieve a higher band, tending slightly towards over-generalisation in places. Overall, the prompt is well answered, placing the response solidly at Band 7.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 7.0

The essay presents a clear logical organisation and progression throughout. Each paragraph has a distinct focus, beginning with an introduction, followed by body paragraphs addressing the academic side and the practical side respectively, and concluding with a summary. Cohesive devices are used reasonably well, such as 'On the contrary', 'To cite an example', and 'Taking everything into account'. Paragraphing is used sufficiently and appropriately, though some minor mechanical errors in cohesion prevent it from reaching a higher band level.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.5

The student demonstrates a sufficient range of vocabulary for the task, allowing for some flexibility and precision (e.g., 'interpersonal skills', 'white collar jobs', 'pressurised circumstances'). Less common items are attempted with some awareness of style and collocation, although there are a few lexical inaccuracies and typos, such as 'certian' instead of 'certain', 'collabortively' instead of 'collaboratively', and 'high-qualified' instead of 'highly qualified'. These occasional errors do not impede communication.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The writer uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including conditional and subordinate clauses (e.g., 'While many people believe that..., there are some who disagrees'). There are several grammatical errors present, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('there are some who disagrees' instead of 'disagree'), articles ('in medical field' instead of 'in the medical field'), and minor spelling mistakes. Despite these errors, the sentences are generally clear and communication is not impeded, fitting the Band 6 descriptor well.

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

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