Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-04

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In many parts of the world, people rely on private cars for transportation.

In what ways does reliance on private cars affect the way we live?

Do the effects tend to be positive or negative?

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

Student answer (Band 5.0)

Nowadays, having a personal car is a status in society. It is obivious that one prefers to go with private vehicle that is more convenient and comfortable. I think this has a literally a negetive effect on lifestyle even if it offers facilities.

To begin with, people may not able to save money if they have private car. To elaborate, everything is quite expensive particularly the maintenance like gas and oil, regular repairing and general services. Besides, insurance companies easily trap people by various lucrative offers of safety and coverages. Eventually, one could start paying as equal amount of expenditure as one person. One car can make changes in budget of a person. People have to start making adjustments after buying a car which directly introduce a life with extra stress.

Secondly, if every house has one or two cars then it directly affects the lifestyle. For an instance, people have the same timing for job and business that causes the congestion on roads during peak time with a lot of air, noise and environmental pollution. Traffic has direct or indirect effect of health such as cardiac diseases and mental issues with the pace of time.

People can go anywhere and anytime and they do not need to wait and can be on time if they have private mode of transportation. But the other options are also availabe such as public transportation and taxies. With these services they do not even care the higher fares too.

To conclude, car is really a need in today's world but it is also beneficial if people consider for stress free life and health environment then it would be a positive effect.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses the main components of the prompt by discussing how reliance on private cars affects lifestyle and whether these effects are positive or negative, but the development remains limited and under-developed. For instance, the discussion on financial costs in the second paragraph touches on maintenance and insurance, but the ideas are not fully extended with precise explanation. Similarly, the mention of pollution and health issues in the third body paragraph is introduced briefly without sufficient elaboration. The student does take a position that the overall effect is negative, but the conclusion introduces a somewhat contradictory thought regarding a stress-free life, which makes the overall stance slightly unclear.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The essay displays some basic organization with clear paragraph breaks and transitional markers such as 'To begin with' and 'Secondly'. However, there is a lack of clear overall progression, and the logical flow between sentences is occasionally hindered by abrupt shifts in ideas, such as the sudden introduction of public transportation in the fourth paragraph which disrupts the development of the previous point. Cohesive devices are sometimes inaccurate or mechanical, and referencing can be unclear, as seen in phrases like 'With these services they do not even care the higher fares too', where the connection to the preceding text is weak.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The lexical resource is limited but minimally adequate to convey the basic meaning. The student attempts some less common vocabulary, such as 'maintenance', 'congestion', and 'lucrative', but these are accompanied by noticeable spelling errors like 'obivious' and 'negetive', as well as awkward word choices and collocations, including 'regular repairing' instead of 'regular repairs' or 'servicing'. These errors and limited word choices cause some difficulty for the reader and prevent the vocabulary from achieving a higher level of flexibility and precision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writing relies on a limited range of sentence structures, and attempts at complex sentences are frequently faulty. There are frequent errors in grammar, such as missing articles ('if they have private car', 'as equal amount'), incorrect prepositions, and subject-verb agreement issues ('people may not able to save'). Punctuation is also problematic in places. These frequent errors require the reader to occasionally pause and re-read parts of the text to understand the intended meaning, though communication is generally maintained.

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