Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 13 · 2026-08-19

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Many working people get little or no exercise either during the working day or in their free time, and have health problems as a result.

Why do many working people not get enough exercise?

What can be done about this problem?

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

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Most of the members in the families, these days are working and therefore follow a strict schedule of 9 hours working at office along with 3 hours spent on commuting. Out of 24 hours, 12 are gone in the professional responsibilities and out of remaining 12, 7-8 are spent in sleeping. Out of remaining 4 hours, 1 hour is spent again on daily routines like brushing, bathing, getting ready and if you are a woman, then additional 2 hours are spent on cooking. People generally do not like to spoend rest of these 2-3 hours and for woman this one hour on exercising rather they would either like to socialise, meetin friends, spend time with family or entertain themselves by watching TV. Due to this packed daily routine, people tend to skip the daily exercise. In the absence of sufficient body movements, people develop health problems such as high cholestrol, obesity, cervical etc.

In the earlier times, people used to do different work such as farming or anything that involves phsyical strength and therefore, used to keep fit as they get sufficiuent time for work and rest, however, with the shift of life, the type of work has been changed from physical to mental work and therefore, people use their mental abilities more than physical strength that makes body less movable and this directly impacts the health of the people.

In the absence of more physical work, the bodies are develoing ailments and inactivity causing serious health risk and therefore, now is the need to change the liefstyle and give some space to active and healthy habits. Since the work of people has not been changed to mental work, we can also shift to food that serves mental abilities and is not required by someone having very less phsyical activity. If we are able to change the routine, then very little time to execricise can also keep the body fit and active.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses both parts of the prompt: reasons for inactivity and potential solutions. However, the development is uneven. The first paragraph provides a detailed breakdown of time management, which is a good attempt at supporting ideas, but the second paragraph regarding the shift from physical to mental work is somewhat repetitive and lacks depth. The final paragraph attempts to offer solutions, but the suggestion to 'shift to food that serves mental abilities' is vague and not clearly linked to the problem of physical inactivity. To improve, ensure that each reason is clearly explained and that solutions are practical and directly address the identified causes.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organised into three paragraphs, which is a logical structure. There is a clear progression of ideas from the causes of inactivity to the historical context and finally to potential solutions. However, the use of cohesive devices is somewhat mechanical and repetitive, with frequent use of 'and therefore' and 'out of'. Some sentences are quite long and cluttered, which occasionally makes the flow of ideas feel slightly disjointed. Improving the variety of linking words and ensuring that each paragraph has a clear topic sentence would enhance the overall coherence of the response.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, but there are several spelling errors, such as 'spoend', 'phsyical', 'sufficiuent', 'develoing', 'liefstyle', and 'execricise'. These errors are frequent enough to be noticeable. While the student attempts to use topic-specific vocabulary like 'professional responsibilities', 'ailments', and 'inactivity', the range is limited. To reach a higher band, the student should focus on accuracy in spelling and attempt to use a wider range of collocations and less common lexical items to express ideas with more precision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors throughout. Issues include subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'Most of the members... are working'), awkward phrasing (e.g., 'the work of people has not been changed to mental work'), and punctuation errors. While the meaning is generally clear, the high frequency of errors in basic grammar and sentence construction prevents the response from reaching a higher band. Focusing on sentence structure, ensuring correct verb forms, and proofreading for basic grammatical slips would significantly improve the quality of the writing.

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

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