Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-15

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In their advertising, businesses nowadays usually emphasise that their products are new in some way. Why is this? Do you think it is a positive or negative development?

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

While advertising these day businesses generally highlights that their products are fresh and new in some way. This is because to draw people's attention and differentiate their product with their competitors. I believe this is a negative development as it promotes over-consumption and also mis-lead the buyers.

The primary reason is that people buying products that they don't actually need. These ads portray the products as the new innovation that people must have in their house. This leads to creation of interest in the individuals watching the ad. The individual then ought to purchase this newly marketed product, regardless if he actually needed it or not. A major example are the TV companies, such as TCL, LG, SONY which purposely add a bit more features as you increase the LED size to promote people to buy the larger one, which costs more.

Another major problem associated with these ads is leading the customers in the wrong way. Companies spend millions of dollars on their advertising and marketing campaigns, showing off a minor update as a major breakthrough in the product. These campaigns are purposely driven to attract a large number of new buyers, and also force the existing customer to update to the latest product. They mis-lead the customer thinking that it is major advancement compared to the previous one.

In conclusion, in today's world business companies are always marketing in their products in a brand new way, which leads to the consumer over-spending their money and putting them off in different direction by marketing a small change as a big advancement. Therefore, i would consider this trend to be a negative development.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt, discussing why businesses emphasise new products and stating a clear position that it is a negative development. Ideas are relevant, exploring over-consumption and misleading marketing. However, some arguments lack full extension and suffer from generalisation, such as the example regarding TV sizes and features. The student's position is maintained throughout, but supporting points would benefit from deeper elaboration to reach a higher band. Overall, the task is adequately addressed in line with Band 6 criteria.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay has a coherent overall arrangement with a clear four-paragraph structure. Introduction and conclusion are present, and body paragraphs focus on distinct ideas. However, cohesive devices are sometimes mechanical or awkwardly used, such as 'The primary reason is that people buying products...' where grammatical linking is weak. Referencing is occasionally confusing, as seen in 'putting them off in different direction'. Paragraphing is used appropriately, but logical progression within paragraphs can feel somewhat disjointed due to phrasing issues, placing this firmly at Band 6.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items like 'differentiate', 'over-consumption', and 'breakthrough'. However, there are notable word-choice and spelling errors that detract from precision, such as 'mis-lead' instead of 'mislead', 'this day' instead of 'these days', and 'business companies'. While communication is not impeded, these inaccuracies and awkward collocations place the lexical performance within the Band 6 descriptor.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

There is a mix of simple and complex sentence forms attempted, such as 'While advertising these day businesses generally highlights...' and 'These ads portray the products as the new innovation that people must have...'. However, there are frequent grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement issues ('businesses generally highlights'), missing auxiliary verbs ('people buying products'), and incorrect prepositions ('leading the customers in the wrong way'). These errors require some effort from the reader to interpret, aligning with the Band 5 descriptor.

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