Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-09-12

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people say that parents should encourage their children to take part in organised group activities in their free time. Others say that it is important for children to learn how to occupy themselves on their own.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

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

 

Student answer (Band 6.0)

Some people believe that parents have to promote their children to participate in organised group activities during their leisure time. Other argue that they have to know about how to entertain themselves on their own. I agree with the given views, as taking part in organised tasks will be good their overall health and personal growth, whereas occupy themselves will inculcate essential skills. Therefore, combination of both activities will brings benefits for the children.

On the one side, if parents encourage their children to take participate in the organised activities like sports, music or other, it will leads to the development of important life skills. For example, if children play football, they will adapt good habit about doing regular exercise. Also, over time they will build good communication, critical-thinking, problem-solving, disciplined, sportsmanship and teamwork skills. Sometimes physical activities will promote them to showcase their talent and perform best in the team. Therefore, they will become more fit, talented, confident and get another opportunity for their successful career in the sports.

On the other side, learning to occupy themselves is also an important part of their childhood. As indulge themselves in activities like painting, playing a musical instruments and reading book will encourage them to develop innovative ideas, learn a new things and gain in-depth knowledge regarding particular reading subjects. Apart from that, doing painting will improve their mind-body coordination, focus and concentration power. Also, self time facilitate them to evaluate themselves and find their mistakes. Therefore, it is necessary for every children to spend their leisure time and learn about how to spend self-time with their own hobbies.

In conclusion, a balanced approach would be preferable because both activities have positive impacts on their childhood and they are responsible for their overall growth, development of essential skills and beneficial for their bright future.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5

Your response successfully addresses all parts of the task by discussing both views—group activities and independent play—and providing your own clear position in the introduction and conclusion. You present relevant ideas and support them with appropriate examples, such as how playing football develops teamwork or how painting improves mind-body coordination. However, some of your supporting points tend to be a bit repetitive or list-like, such as when you list multiple skills separated by commas without fully extending each one. To reach a higher band, you should ensure that every main idea is thoroughly expanded and illustrated with more depth rather than listing numerous attributes in a single sentence. Overall, your handling of the prompt is effective and covers the required perspectives well, demonstrating a good grasp of the task requirements.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

Your essay has a clear overall progression and a logical four-paragraph structure with an introduction, two body paragraphs representing each view, and a conclusion. You use standard cohesive devices to guide the reader through your arguments, such as 'On the one side', 'On the other side', and 'In conclusion'. However, there are some mechanical transitions and awkward cohesive links, such as starting a sentence with 'As indulge themselves' or 'Also, self time facilitate them'. Furthermore, referencing and pronoun use are occasionally imprecise, which disrupts the natural flow of ideas. To improve this criterion, you need to use a wider variety of cohesive devices more flexibly and ensure that your sentences flow into one another smoothly without abrupt grammatical interruptions.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'inculcate', 'critical-thinking', 'sportsmanship', and 'mind-body coordination'. However, your lexical control is inconsistent, and there are several noticeable word choice and collocation errors throughout the text. For instance, you write 'promote their children to participate' instead of 'encourage', 'take participate' instead of 'take part', and 'spend self-time' rather than 'spend time alone'. There are also verb-noun collocation slips like 'brings benefits' instead of 'bring benefits' or 'lead to benefits'. While these errors do not impede overall communication, they prevent you from achieving a higher band score. Expanding your precision in word formation and collocation will greatly benefit your lexical score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

You attempt a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, including conditional structures and relative clauses, such as 'if parents encourage their children to take participate... it will leads to the development of important life skills.' Nevertheless, your writing contains frequent grammatical errors, particularly regarding verb forms, subject-verb agreement, and prepositions. For example, you write 'it will leads' instead of 'it will lead', 'Other argue' instead of 'Others argue', 'whereas occupy themselves' instead of 'whereas occupying themselves', and 'every children' instead of 'every child'. There are also punctuation and article omissions. These frequent errors show a lack of control over more complex structures and mean that your error-free sentences are not frequent enough to secure a higher band.

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