Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-23

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In many countries today, crime novels and TV crime dramas are becoming more and more popular. Why do you think these books and TV shows are popular? What is your opinion of crime fiction and TV crime dramas?

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

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

A growing popularity of books and television programmes, which descibe criminal acivities in many countries. It is gaining popularity due to its thriller genre and action scenes. I believe that consuming violent contents can have negative impact on the overall society.

The key contributing factor behing the occurrence is that climax of the story offers suspense. Movies and reading contents are often become more interesting when they are developing curiosity among viewers by hiding actual plot twist till the end of the storyline. Therefore, this genre of movies and novels are either resulted in binge watch or page turning stories. Furthermore, gruesome crimes can develop emotions among viewers. Many people become sentimental when they explore scenes of inhuman activities and also want positive characters to eliminatate negative ones. This particularly become captivating for individuals. Hence, people invest their time watching such TV shows.

Despite an increasing popularity, a few drawbacks should not be overlooked. To begin with, it promote crime in real world.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response4.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource6.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.5

You address both questions to some extent: the opening gives a reason for the genre’s popularity, and you state that violent content can negatively affect society. The discussion of suspense, plot twists and emotional involvement is relevant, but these points are only briefly explained and lack a concrete example. Your opinion is also not fully developed: the final paragraph begins to discuss drawbacks but stops after “it promote crime in real world,” so the reader does not learn how you weigh the harms against the entertainment value. The response is 163 words, below the required 250, and this leaves the task substantially incomplete. Develop your position and support each main idea with explanation or an example.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, a paragraph explaining popularity, and a final paragraph that starts to present your view. Linking expressions such as “Furthermore,” “Therefore,” and “Hence” help show relationships between ideas. However, progression is limited because the final paragraph ends after one short claim, leaving the argument unfinished. Some connections are also unclear, as in “The key contributing factor behing the occurrence,” where the reference to “occurrence” is difficult to identify. The paragraph about popularity combines suspense and emotional reactions without clearly separating or concluding these points. Use a complete concluding paragraph and make each paragraph develop one clear purpose, with references that identify exactly what they refer to.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use an adequate range of topic-related vocabulary, including “suspense,” “plot twist,” “storyline,” “gruesome crimes,” and “inhuman activities.” These choices show an attempt to discuss the genre with some specificity, and the meaning is generally understandable. There are, however, several spelling and word-choice problems, such as “descibe,” “acivities,” “behing,” and “eliminatate.” Some combinations are also unnatural, including “consuming violent contents” and “binge watch or page turning stories.” Choose more precise, natural expressions and check spelling carefully. For example, “crime-related content” is more suitable than “violent contents,” while “encourage viewers to binge-watch” expresses the intended idea more clearly.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including a sentence beginning “when they are developing curiosity” and one using “when they explore scenes.” This gives the response some structural variety, and the main ideas can usually be followed. However, several grammatical errors remain and sometimes make relationships difficult to understand. The opening is a sentence fragment (“A growing popularity of books and television programmes…”), and there are problems with agreement and verb forms in “programmes … It is gaining,” “movies and novels are either resulted,” and “it promote crime.” Articles and countability also need attention in “have negative impact” and “violent contents.” Practise complete sentence construction and check subject–verb agreement, verb patterns and articles when editing.

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