Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-09-19

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In many countries, paying for things using mobile phone (cellphone) apps is becoming increasingly common. Does this development have more advantages or more disadvantages?

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Cellphoes are the most common electronic gadgets you can see with eyeryone. With the use of phones people can do numbers of work within few minitues. One of the most important work is payments from the phone. More then 95% of poluation is paying from the smartphones which has both pros and cons. According to me there numrous advantages of this practice then cons. This essay will elaborate on both sides and explain why I think advantages are suprime then disadvantages.

To start with, significant advantage of phone payment is conveniant. Individuals donot need to carry physical copies of many cards as they can install their bank application in their phones and able to use it verywhere. For instance, apple pay, a person with apple phone can copy their bank card into the wallet of phone and pay from the digital card to do shopping. Scond advantage is security. If people carry physical cards then there are more chances to robbed and lose thair card. Digital payment applications are more secure and only open with a person's fingerprints or passcode. Thirdly, less chances of chip failure. Some physical cards get broken chip and a proponent cannot pay at store. However, phones usually never get issue with chip.

On the other side, there are some chance of cyber fruad with digital payments. Many scammers can arrange double tap in their machine so people end up paying twice for one purchase. For example, when people go to unknow counrty and pay with the phone might get fruad because many people prefer to target forgine people due to language barrie and it is very common that people usually not check any payment details while travelling because of lack of timing. Moreover, phones might get hacked and stolen to unknow place and a person end up having no money as they are higly depend on phone payments and avoid carrying cash money and cards.

To conculde, although people get scams and sometimes their phones get hacked, phone payments are most easy and conveniante mathod for the modern world by incorporating security system in phones. Carrying physical card is still risky and dangers in many countries.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The student addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the advantages and disadvantages of paying with mobile phone applications, and clearly states a personal position that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages ('advantages are suprime then disadvantages'). Ideas are presented and supported with examples, such as Apple Pay and security features like fingerprints. However, some arguments are a bit simplistic and over-generalized, such as claiming that 'More then 95% of poluation is paying from the smartphones'. While the main parts of the prompt are covered, the development of ideas lacks the depth and extension expected for higher bands. Overall, the response meets the requirements for a Band 6.0 in Task Achievement.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The response has a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs addressing both sides of the issue, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate ideas. However, cohesion is at times faulty and mechanical. The writer relies heavily on basic sequencing words like 'To start with', 'Scond advantage', 'Thirdly', and 'On the other side'. Furthermore, referencing is occasionally unclear or awkward, and some transitional links between sentences are missing, which disrupts the natural flow of ideas. These limitations place the response comfortably within the Band 6.0 descriptor range for Coherence and Cohesion.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully incorporating topic-specific terms such as 'digital payment applications', 'bank application', and 'cyber fraud'. However, there are numerous spelling and word-choice errors throughout the text, including 'Cellphoes', 'eyeryone', 'minitues', 'poluation', 'numrous', 'suprime', 'conveniant', 'scond', 'fruad', 'unknow', 'counrty', 'forgine', 'barrie', 'conculde', and 'dangers'. While these errors are frequent, they rarely impede overall communication because the context remains clear. This lexical profile aligns well with the criteria for Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional structures such as 'If people carry physical cards then there are more chances to robbed'. There are, however, frequent grammatical errors, missing articles, incorrect prepositions, and structural inaccuracies (e.g., 'a person with apple phone can copy their bank card', 'phones usually never get issue with chip', and 'a person end up having no money as they are higly depend on phone payments'). Errors in subject-verb agreement and word forms occur regularly. Despite these frequent mistakes, communication is generally maintained, placing this response at a Band 5.0 for grammatical range and accuracy.

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