Maintaining long-term friendships is becoming increasingly challenging for many adults. What are the primary reasons for this difficulty? Why is it important for individuals to make an effort to sustain these relationships?
This IELTS Writing Task 2 answer was marked Band 5 on the four official criteria. All four criteria were marked at 5. The biggest single improvement: Develop two distinct ideas for each question: add another cause such as relocation and another benefit such as belonging, with explanation and a specific example.
How it was marked
| Criterion | Band | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Task Response | 5 | The essay addresses both questions, identifying reduced time because of "increasing working hours or family issues" and explaining emotional support as a reason to preserve friendships. However, each question is developed around only one main idea, and the explanation becomes repetitive rather than fully examining several primary reasons and different benefits. |
| Lexical Resource | 5 | The essay uses enough basic vocabulary to communicate its main ideas, including "working hours", "family issues" and "lifelong friend", but word choice is often repetitive and several collocations, spellings and word forms are inaccurate. Expressions such as "perform their best performance" and "horrible feeling was released" are noticeably unnatural. |
| Grammatical Range & Accuracy | 5 | The response attempts a mixture of simple and complex structures, including conditional language in "If they don't have a friend to talk to" and subordinate clauses beginning with "when" and "since". However, frequent errors in verb forms, sentence boundaries, conjunctions and clause construction reduce accuracy, although the overall meaning remains generally clear. |
| Coherence & Cohesion | 5 | The response has a generally understandable progression from causes to importance and a concluding paragraph, but the second body paragraph is overloaded and several ideas are joined in long, repetitive sentences. Cohesive organisation is weakened by the isolated lowercase "firstly", the absence of a clear second supporting point, and unclear progression in the example about George. |
The answer
A learner answer, not a model answer — study what the marks reward, don't copy it.
Corrections from the marking
For example when adults form a family they will spend more time with their partner and less time on friendships, in order to have more spare time for other things.
For example, when adults form a family, they will spend more time with their partner and less time on friendships in order to have more spare time for other things.
Use a comma after the introductory phrase and after the dependent when-clause; no comma is needed before the purpose phrase.
when adults form a family
when adults start a family
The natural collocation is “start a family,” not usually “form a family.”
firstly, the importance of sustaining these relationships is to ensure that you have a friend to talk with when you are depress and upset.
Firstly, the importance of sustaining these relationships is to ensure that you have a friend to talk with when you are depress and upset.
The first word of a new sentence must be capitalised.
the importance of sustaining these relationships is to ensure that you have a friend to talk with
it is important to sustain these relationships because you have a friend to talk with
“The importance ... is to ensure” is an unnatural expression; use “it is important ... because” to state the reason clearly.
when you are depress and upset
when you are depressed and upset
The adjective “depressed” is required after “are,” not the verb “depress.”
becuase
because
“Because” is misspelt.
perform their best performance
perform at their best
“Perform their best performance” is an incorrect and repetitive collocation; the natural expression is “perform at their best.”
rather than a friend you just known .
rather than a friend you have just known.
Use the present perfect form have known to describe an experience continuing up to the present, and remove the space before the full stop.
How this answer could score higher
- Develop two distinct ideas for each question: add another cause such as relocation and another benefit such as belonging, with explanation and a specific example.
- Improve grammatical accuracy in complex sentences, especially verb forms and conjunctions: use "he needed", "comforted by his friend" and avoid the incorrect pattern "Although ..., but ...".
- Replace repetitive and unnatural collocations with precise academic phrasing, such as "perform at their best", "maintain good performance at work" and "provide emotional support".
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