Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · 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 6.5)

There has been an increase in the number of people visiting well-known places to take photographs of themselves rather than living in the moment and enjoying the place. This essay will discuss how this is a negative trend and links it to the rise of social media and a myth associated with photography.

Due to the rise of social media people are influenced by what they see. They are attracted by the cool pictures and influenced by the authors of them. They want to be a part of this trend too. They want to show people they visited that place as well. It all comes down to seeking validation from strangers and relatives online. As a result, the time that should be spent for leisure,exposure and fun, is spent behind a camera or a phone. To cite an example, I visited Times Square in New York three months ago. It was busier than all the museums, parks and malls in the city despite offering nothing valuable compared to all of those places. People were there just make snaps and take pictures of the large video boards. This time could have been better spent learning the culture of the United States or the history of New York.

Moreover, people have started associating photographs with memory and nostalgia. Both of them are supposed to exist in your brain not on your cell-phones or computers. People try to record and capture as much as they can believing they will go back home and look back at it with pride and nostalgia. However, that is actually not the case. On most instances they are overwhelmed with the large number of pictures that look similar. Only to realise they have wasted both their time and money and not actually lived through the experience.

While this trend is on the rise, I hope my two cents would be worth your while. It is important to curb the side-effects of social media and realise our true purpose of photography. Only then we will be able to understand the significance of places and travel.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0

Your response addresses both questions: you explain the trend through social-media influence and the desire for online validation, and you clearly judge it negatively. The Times Square example supports your view by showing how photography can displace engagement with a destination. You also develop a second reason—that people expect photographs to preserve memories but may end up with many similar images instead. These ideas are relevant and generally extended, although the claim that Times Square offers “nothing valuable” is broad, and the point about photography and memory could be supported with a more specific explanation or example. A more balanced acknowledgement of why people value taking photographs would also make the discussion more fully developed.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The essay has a clear overall structure: an introduction states your position, two body paragraphs present separate explanations, and the conclusion returns to your view. Linking phrases such as “Due to the rise of social media” and “Moreover” help signal the progression. However, some connections are mechanical or unclear. “This time could have been better spent” follows the Times Square example, but the link between the crowd and the lost opportunity for cultural learning could be made more explicit. The final paragraph introduces “my two cents” and a call to curb social media’s effects rather abruptly, rather than synthesising the two arguments. More precise referencing and a conclusion that directly summarises your reasoning would strengthen cohesion.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.5

You use an adequate range for the topic, including phrases such as “seeking validation,” “nostalgia,” “overwhelmed,” and “significance of places.” These choices help communicate the main ideas, and the vocabulary is generally understandable. At times, however, word choice or collocation is imprecise: “authors” is not the natural term for people posting photographs, “make snaps” is awkward, and “exposure” does not fit naturally in the list “leisure, exposure and fun.” The phrase “my two cents” is also informal for this essay. Aim for more precise, consistently appropriate wording—for example, “content creators,” “take snapshots,” and “online visibility”—and avoid repeating general terms such as “people” and “place” when a more specific noun is available.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and complex forms, including the opening contrast “rather than living in the moment” and the sentence beginning “believing they will go back home.” Meaning remains clear throughout, but some grammatical and punctuation errors prevent consistently accurate control. For example, “They were there just make snaps” needs an infinitive marker (“there just to take photographs”), and “Only to realise…” is a sentence fragment that should be joined to the preceding sentence. In “people are influenced by what they see,” the following pronoun “They” is clear, but several short sentences in succession make the structure less controlled. Check comma spacing and sentence boundaries, and practise integrating supporting details into complete, varied sentences.

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