Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-08-12

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Nowadays famous people are photographed by professional photographers everywhere they go. Some people say this is a good thing because the public are interested in their lives. Other people think that photographers are wrong to follow famous people.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

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

Student answer (Band 4.5)

More and more people are doing their shopping online instead of in physical stores. What are the advantages and disadvantages. do the advantages of online shopping outweigh the disadvantages.

In this technological era, more individuals prefers digital shopping sites inspite of visiting in the markets or shopping malls. Although, online shopping websites provides benefits such as time efficient or wide range of choices, while, it also following with drawbacks including unemployment.

Begin with the disadvantage, purchasing sites create a major risk regarding the unemployment in the markets because more and more people are utilizing e-commerce which excludes the physical shopping location, workers and even travelling expenses, it may upserged the risk of jobs. For example, if more people contineously use online shopping sites it will adversely effects on the jobs of local workers, rented shops of small scale businesses and even the travelling rates for visiting that place then it will create the unemployment in the country.

Shuffling towards benefits, online shopping not only saves time but also have variety of alternatives for purchasing items. To explain more, individuals are following hustle bustle lifestyle through which they do not have that much time for purchasing from physical stores. So, digital shopping makes their life more reliable. Furthermore, in some cases individuals did not get their personal choices from shopping malls, whereas, shopping sites carry each and every kind of alternatives to choose, it can be color, size, or style which completes their demands.

In conclusion, after the argument, it can not be denied that shopping from digital sites is challenging, its benefits can not be ignored which provides reliable method for people.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response2.0
Coherence and Cohesion5.0
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall4.5

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 2.0

The response is completely off-topic. The prompt asks for a discussion regarding the ethics of photographing famous people, but the student has written an essay about the advantages and disadvantages of online shopping. Consequently, the task has not been addressed at all. While the student provides a clear position and some development of ideas, these are irrelevant to the actual prompt provided. According to the IELTS criteria, a response that is off-topic cannot receive a passing score for Task Achievement, as it fails to address the requirements of the task entirely.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay is logically organized into paragraphs with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Cohesive devices such as 'Begin with the disadvantage', 'Shuffling towards benefits', and 'In conclusion' are used to signal the structure. However, the progression of ideas is hampered by the fact that the content does not relate to the prompt. While the paragraphing is sufficient and the logical flow within the essay is clear, the lack of relevance to the task makes the overall coherence ineffective in the context of the examination.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is adequate for a basic discussion, but it is limited and contains several errors in word choice and collocation. Examples include 'upserged the risk' (incorrect verb usage), 'contineously' (spelling error), and 'hustle bustle lifestyle' (informal/cliché). There is an attempt to use some topic-specific vocabulary related to e-commerce, such as 'digital shopping sites' and 'e-commerce', but the range is not sufficient to demonstrate the flexibility required for higher bands. The errors in word choice occasionally distract the reader.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors throughout. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues ('more individuals prefers'), incorrect preposition usage ('inspite of visiting in the markets'), and awkward phrasing ('it will adversely effects on the jobs'). Punctuation is also inconsistent, particularly with comma usage. While the meaning is generally understandable, the frequency of errors in basic grammar and sentence construction prevents the writing from reaching a higher band score.

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

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