Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-07-27
IELTS Writing Task 2 question
More and more people nowadays visit well-known places to take photographs of themselves, without looking at the place.
Why do you think this is happening?
Is it a positive or a negative trend?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Student answer (Band 5.5)
It is often debatable topic that most many travellers prefer to go foreign countries for their vocations instead of staying their own nation. While this enforce financial burden, the merits can not be overlooked in order to explore diverse culture and gain extraordinary experience.
One major drawback is unnecessary expenses, which mean, when visitors play to go abroad, they have to spend extra funds to buy clothes according the weather condition, book fight tickets and accommodation along with necessary items such as food. For instance, it is revealed by BBC that communtors spent annually 30% of their income to get an exposure of a novel country. Therefore, financial pressure is count as a main demerit of traveling another country.
Despite this challenge, the benefits of this trend are far more significant. To begin with, experiencing new culture and tradition, as every place has different culture, which makes them distinguished them from others and it gives a chance to visitors to enjoy it and adapt it as needed. In addition, most of places have their own land mark to see, which attracts tourists to have a look. To exemplify, Canada has very popular land marks like CN Tower, which attracts people to visit and gain different experience. This can not be available in their own country. As a result, exploring a different location is highly beneficial to have a different experience in hectic schedule.
In conclusion, Although traveling abroad has a challenge like financial issue, I believe that the advantages it offers in term of exchanging culture, and experiencing to enjoy famous land marks are clearly surpass the disadvantages.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 6.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The response is largely off-topic. The prompt asks about the trend of people visiting famous places to take photographs without actually looking at the location. However, your essay discusses the general merits and drawbacks of traveling to foreign countries. Because you did not address the specific phenomenon of 'photo-tourism' or the 'selfie culture' at landmarks, the response fails to address the core requirements of the task. While you have a clear position, the ideas are not relevant to the prompt provided, which significantly impacts your score.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0
The essay is organized into logical paragraphs with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. You use some cohesive devices such as 'To begin with', 'In addition', and 'In conclusion' to link ideas. However, the progression of ideas is hindered by the fact that the content does not align with the prompt. The referencing is sometimes unclear, and the logical flow within paragraphs is occasionally disrupted by awkward phrasing, such as the transition between the financial burden and the cultural benefits.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
You demonstrate a sufficient range of vocabulary to express basic ideas, such as 'financial burden', 'extraordinary experience', and 'hectic schedule'. However, there are frequent errors in word choice and collocation, such as 'play to go abroad' (plan), 'communtors' (commuters), and 'exchanging culture' (cultural exchange). Some phrases are repetitive or unnatural. To improve, focus on using more precise vocabulary and ensuring that your word choices are contextually appropriate for the specific topic being discussed.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5
You attempt a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text. Issues include subject-verb agreement ('financial pressure is count'), missing articles ('to get an exposure of a novel country'), and incorrect preposition usage ('according the weather'). While these errors do not completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to cause some difficulty for the reader. You should focus on proofreading for basic grammatical accuracy and refining your use of complex sentence structures.
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