Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-06

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)

More and more people nowadays visit well-known places to take photographs on themselves, without looking at the place. I strongly believe that this is happening because people have lost real interest in the places and they visit well-known places only to show off on the social media.

For example, recently, one of my friends mentioned to me about a place he wanted to visit and surprisingly, he had no interest in that place. He merely wanted to follow the social media trend. He just wanted to show his social media buddies that he had also visited that place. Therefore, in reality, our society is falling behind, as people have lost true values, and are only interested in competing with each other and blindly following the social media trends.

In my view, it is a very negative trend. Due to this negative trend our next generation would not be able to admire well-known places and learn about history and art. For example, London Bridge is a very historical place, as it had always protected the city from attacks. However, if you'll ask about its significance from the people, majority of them would be unable to answer it correctly.

Therefore, such a trend had changed the perception of people about well known places. In conclusion, I would say that it is a very negative trend and this is happening because people have lost real interest in the places and they visit well-known places only to show off on the social media. Moreover, social media is responsible for such negative trends,

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

It must first be noted that the response contains 247 words, failing to meet the minimum requirement of 250 words, with 12 words copied from the prompt excluded. Regarding task fulfillment, the response addresses all parts of the prompt by identifying reasons for the trend and stating a clear position that it is negative. However, the ideas remain limited and under-developed. For instance, the explanation of why people visit places to show off on social media relies on a single personal anecdote about a friend rather than broader societal analysis. Similarly, the argument regarding the next generation failing to learn about history is supported by a single example, the London Bridge, which contains factual inaccuracies about its historical defensive role. To reach a higher level, the writer needs to fully extend and support ideas with deeper reasoning and fully satisfy the word count requirement.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The text demonstrates some overall organization with paragraphing used to separate the introduction, body points, and conclusion. However, there is no clear overall progression of ideas, and the conclusion trails off abruptly with an incomplete sentence ending in a comma. Cohesive devices are sometimes used mechanically or repetitively, such as the frequent reliance on transitional phrases like 'For example' and 'Therefore' to launch sentences. Referencing is also occasionally unclear, such as the ambiguous pronoun reference in the third paragraph ('if you'll ask about its significance from the people'). To improve coherence and cohesion, the writer should ensure logical transitions between sentences, refine paragraph structuring, and avoid mechanical repetition of basic connective words while ensuring conclusions are fully formed.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is limited but minimally adequate for the task. The writer attempts some less common phrases, such as 'social media buddies' and 'blindly following', but these choices lean towards informal or repetitive language. There are also noticeable lexical inaccuracies and awkward collocations, such as writing 'photographs on themselves' instead of 'photographs of themselves', and referring to London Bridge as a historical structure that 'protected the city from attacks'. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they cause some difficulty for the reader and reflect a restricted word choice. To progress, the writer should incorporate a wider range of precise vocabulary, improve collocation control, and maintain a more formal academic or semi-formal tone throughout.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response displays a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on basic patterns with occasional attempts at complex forms that are often faulty. There are frequent grammatical errors that can cause difficulty for the reader, including article misuse ('on the social media' instead of 'on social media'), inappropriate conditional structures ('if you'll ask'), and awkward verb tenses such as 'such a trend had changed'. Punctuation and preposition use also show instability across sentences. To achieve a higher band, the writer must demonstrate greater control over complex sentence patterns, improve the accuracy of verb tenses and articles, and reduce the frequency of basic grammatical slips.

See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.

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