IELTS Band 7 Task 2 Sample Answer: The Essay, and the Vocabulary That Caps It

A band 7 answer in IELTS Writing Task 2 is usually not short of ideas. It is short of precise words. That is the single most common shape of a band 7 essay, and a model answer with band 7 printed beside it will never show you that, because it shows you the finished text and not the marks behind it.

This page gives a full Task 2 answer, the four marks with the published wording each one matches, and then the same answer moved to 7.5 by changing ten words. No new ideas, no new sentences, no reordering.

The question

In some countries, young people are encouraged to work or travel for a year between finishing school and starting university. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this practice. Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words.

This is a discussion question with two sides, not an opinion question. Both sides have to appear, and the instruction Discuss the advantages and disadvantages does not ask you to pick a winner. You may give an opinion, and a clear one usually helps, but an essay that argues only one side has not discussed the practice. Every Task 2 question type sets out which wordings require a position and which do not.

A band 7 answer, 283 words

In several countries it has become common for school leavers to spend a year working or travelling before they begin a university course. This essay will look at the main benefits of this practice and at the problems it can cause, and will argue that the benefits are greater for most students. The clearest advantage is that a year away from study develops independency. A student who has held a job, paid rent and managed their own money arrives at university with practical skills that school does not teach. Travelling has a similar effect, because it obliges young people to solve problems in places they do not know. A second advantage is that a break can make students more certain about their choice of subject. Many eighteen year olds select a degree without knowing what the related work is actually like, and a year in an office or a hospital gives them real information. There are disadvantages as well. The most serious one is the loss of academic momentum. Study habits are easy to lose and hard to rebuild, and some students find the first term very difficult after a year of not reading or writing essays. There is also a financial issue, because travelling is expensive and a low paid job may not cover the cost, so some families end up supporting their children for an extra year. In conclusion, a year between school and university brings real benefits in independency and in the quality of the student's decision, while the main risks are academic and financial. In my opinion the benefits are more important for most students, provided that the year is planned carefully rather than simply used as a rest.

The four marks, with the published wording behind each

Total 28, which averages to 7.0.

These four marks are mine, written against the published band descriptors so that the arithmetic is visible on the page. The answer was not run through Bandly and no examiner has seen it. The wording on the right is public and quoted; the number beside it is a reading of that wording, which is what any marking is until an examiner does it.

Task Response is the strong mark. Both sides appear, each with two developed ideas rather than a list. The independence point is supported by three concrete things, a job, rent and money. The momentum point explains the mechanism, that habits are easy to lose and hard to rebuild, instead of asserting that study gets harder. There is a position in the introduction and the same position in the conclusion.

Coherence is a clean 7. Four paragraphs, each with one job. The links are relationships and not labels: The clearest advantage, A second advantage, There are disadvantages as well, There is also. Nothing is signposted with Firstly and Secondly standing in for real connections.

Grammar is a 7. There is a relative clause, a participle clause, a conditional idea carried by provided that, and several error free sentences in a row. The errors are few and small.

Vocabulary is the mark holding the essay down, and here is why. Independency is not a word; the noun is independence. Real information is imprecise, because the information is not in question, its usefulness is. Select a degree is an odd pairing, since degrees are chosen rather than selected. And the plain words repeat: advantage three times, students four times, year seven times, difficult, expensive and problems all doing work that a more precise word would do better. That is the band 6 bullet almost exactly: an adequate range, less common vocabulary attempted with some inaccuracy, and errors in word formation.

The pattern is not specific to this essay. Across the eleven library answers estimated at band 7, Lexical Resource came back at 6 on every single one, while Task Response came back at 8 on every single one. Those are machine estimates from a scoring engine that has never been checked against a qualified human examiner, so treat the exact numbers carefully. The shape is still the thing to notice: the ideas mark sat high and the vocabulary mark sat at the bottom, eleven times out of eleven.

The same answer at 7.5, with ten words changed

Nothing below adds an idea, a sentence or a paragraph. Ten words and phrases change. The essay comes out one word shorter.

In several countries it has become common for school leavers to spend a year working or travelling before they begin a university course. This essay will weigh the main benefits of this practice against the problems it can cause, and will argue that the benefits are greater for most students. The clearest advantage is that a year away from study builds independence. A student who has held a job, paid rent and managed their own money arrives at university with practical skills that school does not teach. Travelling has a similar effect, because it obliges young people to solve problems in unfamiliar surroundings. A second advantage is that a break can make students more certain about their choice of subject. Many eighteen year olds commit to a degree without knowing what the related work is actually like, and a year in an office or a hospital gives them a realistic picture of it. There are drawbacks as well. The most serious one is the loss of academic momentum. Study habits are easy to lose and hard to rebuild, and some students find the first term unexpectedly demanding after a year of not reading or writing essays. There is also a financial burden, because travelling is expensive and a poorly paid job may not cover the cost, so some families end up supporting their children for an extra year. In conclusion, a year between school and university brings real benefits in independence and in the quality of the student's decision, while the main risks are academic and financial. In my opinion the benefits are more important for most students, provided that the year is planned carefully rather than simply used as a rest.

The new marks are Task Response 8, Coherence and Cohesion 7, Lexical Resource 7 and Grammatical Range and Accuracy 7. That is 29, which averages to 7.25 and rounds up to 7.5.

Here is every change, and the bullet it answers.

Two things about that list matter more than the words themselves.

None of the replacements is a long word. Drawbacks, burden, weigh, demanding, commit and unfamiliar are all ordinary. The criterion is called Lexical Resource and it rewards precision and collocation, not length. What band 5, 6, 7 and 8 vocabulary actually looks like sets the four levels side by side.

Every change is local. Each one sits inside a sentence that was already there. This is the cheapest half band available to a band 7 writer, because it does not require better ideas or better grammar, only better word choice in sentences you have already written.

What will not move you off band 7

Three things candidates do when they are stuck at 7, and what the arithmetic says about each.

Adding more ideas. Task Response is already at 8 in this answer and in all eleven library answers at band 7. Another body paragraph adds length and risks the development that earns the 8 in the first place. It cannot lift an average that is held down somewhere else.

Using longer words. A longer word used slightly wrongly is worse than a short word used correctly, because inaccuracy is what the band 6 bullet names. Utilise instead of use buys nothing. Burden instead of issue buys something, and it is a shorter word.

Adding linking phrases. Coherence is already at 7 here. Furthermore, moreover and in addition stacked at the front of every paragraph move the mark down rather than up, because the descriptors at band 7 and above ask for cohesive devices used appropriately, not frequently.

What does move it is the ten changes in the table above. A Task 2 answer with every criterion explained walks a different question through the same four marks, and the band 6 version of this page does the exercise one band lower. The Task 1 equivalent shows how the same arithmetic works when there are only 150 words to play with.

What to do today

Take a Task 2 essay you have already written. Do not add anything to it. Go through it once and mark every word that is plain, repeated, or slightly wrong: the nouns you reused, the verbs that could be more exact, the adjectives doing two jobs.

Count them. If you find ten, you have found the same half band this page just walked through.

Then read the band 7 answers in the library and look only at the vocabulary notes under each one. Every answer there carries the sentences each estimate was based on, so you can see which words were flagged and judge for yourself whether you agree.

If you want your own four marks separated out, paste the essay into Bandly. The bands are estimates and no examiner has checked them, but the lowest of the four is the question worth asking, and the sentences the feedback points at are text you can read yourself.