Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-21

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In the future, people may no longer be able to pay for things in shops using cash. All payments may have to be made by card or using phones. Do you think this will happen one day? Why do you think some people might not be happy to give up using cash?

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

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

In this modern era, techonology has been progressing at a fast pace. Many people beleive that all payments might have to be made by card or using phones. I totally agree with this statement.

I think this will happen some day, because it is more convenient and easier to pay using phones or cards. It saves a lot of time due to the reason that while purchasing the expensive things, it requires a lot of time to count the bills accurately. Therefore, they do not need to carry a lot of bills to purchase the luxurious things.

Another reason is that the digital payements will be safer to use. When people carry cash in their bags, they have fear of getting robbed untill they reaches the shops or their home. They have to remain active all their ways because of robbers. Hence, it is better to use phones.

However, there are numerous drawbacks about not using cash. Many believe that the stores impose a lot of taxes especially when purchasing luxury items which require a bigger amount of money. Therefore, they will not agree to use digital systems

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response addresses both parts of the prompt by discussing whether cash will disappear and exploring why people might be unhappy about it, such as concerns over taxes. However, the ideas are under-developed and lack extension. Furthermore, the response is only 188 words long, failing to meet the minimum requirement of 250 words. This significantly impacts task completion. While a clear position is stated ('I totally agree with this statement'), the brevity and lack of deep exploration prevent the response from reaching higher bands. To improve, the student must ensure they write at least 250 words and expand upon their main points with more detailed explanations and examples.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay has a basic organizational structure with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is attempted, though the final paragraph is very brief. Cohesive devices are used to connect ideas, such as 'Therefore', 'Another reason is that', and 'Hence', although some transitions feel a bit mechanical. Logical progression is present, as the student moves from convenience to safety and then to drawbacks. However, referencing is occasionally imprecise, and the overall progression is limited by the short length of the response. To achieve a higher band, the student should ensure smoother transitions between sentences and develop a more robust overall paragraph structure.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, with some attempts at less common words like 'convenient', 'luxurious', and 'digital payments'. However, there are several spelling and word choice errors, such as 'techonology' instead of technology, 'beleive' instead of believe, 'payements' instead of payments, and awkward phrasing like 'expensive things' and 'bigger amount of money'. These errors do not seriously impede communication, but they highlight limitations in lexical control. To improve, the student should focus on accurate spelling and expand their repertoire of precise, topic-specific vocabulary rather than relying on repetitive basic terms.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response displays a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as 'When people carry cash in their bags, they have fear of getting robbed untill they reaches the shops or their home.' There are notable grammatical and mechanical errors throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('they reaches'), incorrect prepositions ('all their ways' instead of all the way), and spelling errors. Punctuation is generally acceptable, and meaning remains clear despite the errors. To progress further, the student needs to increase grammatical accuracy in complex structures and eliminate basic agreement and prepositional errors.

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