Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-01

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In the future, more people will choose to go on holiday in their own country and not travel abroad on holiday. Do you agree or disagree?

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

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Tourism is one of the most important aspects for all countries. Whether it's financially or to maintain their status in the world. Everyone is now promoting their culture and building new tourist attractions so that more people can visit those places and enjoy them. Whereas these days, more people are choosing to go on holiday in their own country.

Firstly, each country is developing its own tourism; this is encouraging more people to come and visit those places more often. Many holiday portals are helping them as well. They provide great discounts, offers and even festive offers that people can enjoy during the festive season. They also introduce various trips that their citizens would relate to and would explore more in the same country, like only women trip, solo trips, trips for siblings or friends.

Another reason would be that some countries have a lot of ancient historic places and have a lot of stories and culture to share. Just like India, where there are huge palaces, forts, caves and other such historic places that help people to learn and understand their own country and its history better. These places also provide tour guides and translators so that more information can be consumed.

In conclusion, the government makes a lot of efforts to increase tourism in their own country, which not only attracts its own tourists but tourist from all over the world to enjoy the facilities and explore places. The system is also making an effort to adapt to other cultures and bring them to our own country, like musical festivals and international fairs, so that more people can experience the beauty of the country.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt by discussing why more people might choose domestic holidays, but the position is not always clearly stated or maintained. While the introduction mentions the trend, it leans more into describing general tourism promotion rather than directly arguing whether you agree or disagree with the future prediction. Ideas are presented, such as the role of holiday portals and historic sites, but they remain somewhat limited and under-developed. For instance, the mention of specific trip types or historic locations in India introduces relevant examples, but they are not fully linked back to why this would eclipse international travel in the future. To reach a higher level, the writer needs to establish a clear, consistent stance throughout the essay and extend their main ideas with more thorough explanations and direct comparisons to travelling abroad.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

There is a coherent overall arrangement to the essay, and the response is divided into logical paragraphs with an introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. However, cohesion at the sentence level is sometimes faulty or mechanical. For example, starting sentences with 'Whereas these days' or 'Another reason would be that' creates awkward transitions and demonstrates a somewhat repetitive use of basic cohesive devices. Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as the pronoun shifts between talking about 'each country', 'citizens', and 'their own country'. Paragraphing is used sufficiently to separate distinct points, but to achieve a higher band, the writer must employ a wider range of cohesive devices more naturally and ensure smoother logical progression between sentences and paragraphs without relying on formulaic transitions.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, demonstrating a minimally acceptable range that allows the writer to communicate basic ideas about tourism and historic sites. There are attempts to use less common vocabulary, such as 'festive offers', 'translators', and 'international fairs', but these are accompanied by noticeable inaccuracies in word choice, collocation, and phrasing, such as writing 'tourist from all over the world' instead of 'tourists' and 'only women trip' instead of 'women-only trips'. Spelling is generally acceptable, but lexical errors occasionally cause minor hesitation for the reader. To improve, the writer should focus on expanding their vocabulary range, improving collocation awareness, and ensuring correct word forms when attempting more sophisticated terminology.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The writing displays a limited range of grammatical structures, relying heavily on simple and moderately complex sentences, many of which contain structural flaws. There are frequent errors in verb forms, agreement, and preposition usage inside grammatical patterns, such as 'Whether it's financially or to maintain their status', which is an incomplete sentence fragment, and 'more people can visit those places and enjoy them'. Punctuation and articles also show consistent inaccuracies, like missing plural markers in 'tourist from all over the world'. While these errors do not completely obscure the message, they occur frequently enough to cause some difficulty for the reader. To progress, the writer needs to practice constructing accurate complex sentences with subordinate clauses and pay closer attention to basic subject-verb agreement and article usage.

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