Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-30

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)

In the modern epoch, businesses emohasise that there is something new in their product compared to others. I believe it is both positive as well as negative development. So, in the forthcoming paragraphs, I have supported my stand with reasonable justifiactions and have also mentioned one of the reasons of doing so.

Talking about the reason of following this trend, in the contemporary era, the level of competition has increased significantly. So, to withstand in this competitive world, businesses emphasise that their products are new in some or other aspects. They do it to grab the attention of the buyers as we humans always look for something new. By doing this, they are able to withstand the competition as emphasising that something is new rises the sale of their product.

Taking into account the positive side, making claims that there is something new in the product helps businesses to grow faster and increase sale in this competitive world as they advertise it in such a way that the product feels lucrative and of much need to the customer. This results in unmindful buying of product by customer boosting the sale of the business.

Now considering the negative side of this trend, it is quite visible that there cannot be something new in every product; businesses emphasising it are doing cosumer exploitation as our brain tends to try something new and in that temptation, the consumer buy that product. Soon after buying such product, consumer feels exploited in ways of financial and mental exploitation as his money is spent in buying the product and he found nothing new in the product. So it can be said that it is a negative development.

In conclusion, this trend is mainly followed to face the competition in the market. It has both positive and negatie side. On the positive side, it helps the businesses increase the sale of product; on the negative side, it leads to extensive exploitatio of emplyoees in both physical and mental manner.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task, examining both why businesses emphasise newness and whether this development is positive or negative. The position is stated early and maintained throughout the essay. However, some ideas are repetitive and underdeveloped. For instance, the discussion on consumer exploitation in the fourth paragraph touches on a valid point regarding misleading marketing, but the reasoning remains somewhat generalised without concrete examples. The conclusion also introduces a slight contradiction by stating the negative side involves the 'exploitation of employees in both physical and mental manner,' which shifts away from the consumer exploitation discussed previously. Consequently, the task response sits firmly in Band 6.0, as all parts of the prompt are addressed, but the depth of development and consistency of supporting ideas show noticeable limitations.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay is arranged into a logical overall structure, following a traditional introduction, body paragraphs addressing distinct facets of the prompt, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate ideas, such as treating the positive and negative aspects in separate paragraphs. However, cohesive devices are sometimes mechanical or overused, as seen with transitional phrases like 'Taking into account the positive side,' and 'Now considering the negative side of this trend.' Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as pronoun ambiguity in phrases like 'soon after buying such product, consumer feels exploited... as his money is spent.' Coherence is maintained overall, but these mechanical elements prevent the essay from reaching a higher band, making Band 6.0 an accurate reflection of the organizational control demonstrated.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully employing terms like 'contemporary era,' 'competition,' 'lucrative,' and 'exploitation.' However, there are noticeable spelling errors ('emohasise,' 'justifiactions,' 'cosumer') and awkward word choices or collocations, such as 'unmindful buying of product' and 'in ways of financial and mental exploitation.' Furthermore, the vocabulary is occasionally repetitive, reusing words like 'trend,' 'competition,' and 'product' frequently. While these errors do not impede overall communication and the writer attempts less common lexical items, the frequency of slips in spelling and collocation keeps the performance at Band 6.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some variety in grammatical structures (e.g., 'So, to withstand in this competitive world, businesses emphasise...'). However, there are frequent grammatical errors and awkward phrasing, such as 'to withstand in this competitive world' (unnecessary preposition), 'sale' instead of 'sales,' and a serious error in the conclusion regarding 'exploitation of employees' instead of consumers. Punctuation is generally acceptable, and while the errors do not completely obscure the writer's meaning, they occur regularly across the text, preventing the essay from achieving a Band 6.5 or 7.0. Therefore, Band 6.0 is appropriate for the control of grammar shown here.

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