The answer describes Thảo's beach clean-ups in short, plain sentences with a simple contrast ('but now the beach is often covered in plastic rubbish') and a directly stated closing observation.
The person I want to talk about is Thảo, a colleague of mine at the design studio where I work in Da Nang. She is a few years older than me, and she is very passionate about the ocean and about keeping our beaches clean.
What I know about her is that she grew up near My Khe Beach, and she says she used to swim there every summer as a child, but now the beach is often covered in plastic rubbish. That's why she decided to do something about it.
She encourages people mostly by organising a beach clean-up once a month. She posts about it on Zalo and invites anyone from the office who wants to join, and usually about ten or fifteen of us go along on a Sunday morning. She also brings extra gloves and bags for people who forget theirs, and she always takes photos to post afterwards, which encourages even more people to come next time.
She has been doing this for about three years now, since she came back from a trip where she saw how dirty some beaches had become. I think she is a really good example of someone who doesn't just complain about a problem but actually does something small and regular about it, and that inspires the rest of us at the office too.
225 words · about 2 minutes
Why this band
- LR“The person I want to talk about is Thảo, a colleague of mine at the design studio” — The opening uses the most standard, formulaic Part 2 framing available — 'The person I want to talk about is' — followed by plain factual details ('a colleague of mine at the design studio') with no attempt at a more creative or varied way in. That directness and predictability is exactly what the Band 6.5 lexical target calls for: 'everyday, high-frequency words' with 'at most one slightly less-common word,' avoiding the more inventive opening a 7.5 answer might use. The plainness here isn't a weakness at this level — it communicates the required information clearly and gets the answer moving without any wasted effort on style.
- GRA“she used to swim there every summer as a child, but now the beach is often covered in plastic rubbish” — The sentence uses the most basic contrastive connector available, 'but,' to join a past-habit clause ('used to swim') with a present-state clause ('is often covered'), accurate and clear but the simplest possible way to express this kind of before-and-after contrast. A 7.5 answer covering the same idea might use a more compressed or figurative structure, but the Band 6.5 grammar target explicitly asks for exactly this — 'mostly simple sentences plus a few basic complex ones' — so the plain 'but' contrast hits the target rather than falling short of it. The contrast itself is also doing real work, since it's the reason given for why Thảo decided to act.
- FC“who doesn't just complain about a problem but actually does something small and regular about it” — The relative clause states its point directly — action over complaint — using everyday vocabulary and a straightforward 'not just X but Y' pattern, without building toward a more layered or figurative reflection the way a higher-band answer might. That plain, clearly stated evaluation is appropriate for Band 6.5, where the fluency target asks only that the answer stay on topic with 'one clear reason or example,' not the fuller evaluative development expected at 7.5. The observation is still a genuine piece of reasoning rather than pure description, which is what keeps the answer functioning well within its target band.