Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-21

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In the future all cars, buses and trucks will be driverless. The only people travelling inside these vehicles will be passengers.

Do you think the advantages of driverless vehicles outweigh the disadvantages?

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

In the upcoming decades, about all motorcars, buses and lorries will expected to be drive without any physical driver. And individuals will be only act as a passengers in vehicles when travelling somewhere. Although this new development is certain drawbacks. I strongly believe that the advantages of driverless vehicles is significantly outweigh the disadvantages in this case.

One major advantage of driverless vehicles is greater efficiency. People can travel a long journey without any driver, and they can also transport goods using trucks from far away cities within a few hours. Secondly, driverless vehicles can reduce both the time accumulated for transportation and also reduce workload on driver. Because driver often drive buses and trucks without a few hours of sleep in 24 hours. For instance, an increasing number of truck driver will be gain benefits from these kinds of vehicle without any stress and depression about traffic congestion or traffic rules. Therefore, driverless cars will not only improve efficiency but also provide easy access to a wide variety of resources.

However, there are some disadvantages to consider. The biggest concern is unemployment. When car and other vehicle are drive without a driver then this will cause many people jobless. To cite an example, many Pakistani people are working as a driver in gulf countries and they make some money for their family needs such as education, health, and other living expenses. Furthermore, driverless vehicles are very expensive as compare to the driver one. Due to high cost many people cannot afford these vehicles. Moreover, we will be more dependent on technology and innovation and they will destroy our mind and abilities to think about new ideologies.

In conclusion, driverless vehicles has several drawbacks such as over dependent on technology, cost, and risk of employment, its benefits in the term of efficiency, reduce workload, and less time consumption. Therefore I firmly believe that the advantages of driverless cars and other vehicles clearly outweigh the disadvantages.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the advantages and disadvantages of driverless vehicles and presents a clear position throughout. The writer explores efficiency, workload reduction, and resources as benefits, while acknowledging concerns regarding unemployment, high costs, and technological dependency. However, some ideas lack deep extension and rely on repetitive or slightly generalized statements, placing the response solidly in Band 6.0. For example, the mention of Pakistani workers in Gulf countries provides a relevant example, but the development of other points such as technological dependency remains somewhat surface-level.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay has a clear overall arrangement and follows a logical structure with an introduction, body paragraphs addressing both sides, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas, such as moving from efficiency advantages to unemployment disadvantages. However, cohesive devices are sometimes mechanical or faulty, as seen in phrases like 'Secondly' followed by 'Because', and referencing can be imprecise, such as 'they will destroy our mind'. While progression is generally maintained, the frequent mechanical transitions prevent the response from achieving a higher band.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'traffic congestion', 'technological dependency', and 'unemployment'. However, there are noticeable lexical and word-choice errors throughout the text, including 'motorcars... will expected to be drive' and 'make some money for their family needs'. Furthermore, spelling and morphological inaccuracies are present, such as 'reduce workload on driver' instead of drivers, and 'over dependent' instead of overly dependent. These errors do not impede overall communication but restrict the lexical score to Band 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional structures. However, grammatical control is inconsistent, and there are frequent errors in basic structures, such as 'about all motorcars... will expected to be drive' and 'the advantages of driverless vehicles is significantly outweigh'. Other errors include missing pluralization and incorrect verb forms. While the meaning remains mostly clear to the reader, the density of grammatical errors prevents the response from reaching Band 6.0, aligning it closer to Band 5.0 descriptors where frequent errors in complex sentences persist.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.