Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-03

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Access to clean water is a basic human right. Therefore every home should have a water supply that is provided free of charge.

Do you agree or disagree?

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

There is widely accepted that clean water is a basic human necessity and must be provided free of charge. In my opinion, a reasonable fee must charge for this service by governments. Otherwise, this can be a huge financial burden on the goverments.

In many third world countries there is a massive shortage of water supply. People are ready to pay huge price of clean water. Furthermore, People are ready to compromise on other needs to fulfill daily need of fresh water. According to a study, In southeast asia an average family spent 60% of their income on fresh water. Government should provide free of charge fresh water supply in order to save the middle class from this great financial burden. Access to fresh water supply can not only support average income family but also improve agriculture sector efficency. Which eventually boost country's economic growth.

On the other hand, free of charge water supply can also cause major issues and put a massive burden on a government. For instance, water filtration plants required a massive budget for its maintance and overall water supply. If a goverment spent its huge proportion of budget only in water supply this may effect other important sectors such as education and healthcare.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response partially addresses the task and suffers from a significant length penalty, falling short of the required 250-word minimum by being only 207 words long. The writer's position is somewhat contradictory at first, stating in the introduction that water 'must be provided free of charge' before immediately pivoting to argue that 'a reasonable fee must charge'. Ideas are limited and under-developed throughout the body paragraphs. For example, the claim about Southeast Asian families spending 60% of their income on fresh water is unsupported and lacks depth of elaboration. To reach a higher band, the writer needs to ensure the word count requirement is met, maintain a consistent and clear position throughout, and fully extend and support all arguments with relevant examples.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

There is some basic organisation with clear paragraph breaks separating the introduction and body points, but overall progression is lacking. Cohesive devices are frequently inadequate, repetitive, or mechanically applied, such as the repeated use of 'Furthermore' and 'On the other hand'. Referencing is also occasionally unclear, such as the pronoun use in body paragraph two. While the essay has a discernible structure, the relationships between sentences and paragraphs feel disjointed at times. To improve coherence and cohesion, the writer should employ a wider and more natural range of cohesive ties, ensure smooth logical transitions between ideas, and craft a concluding paragraph that summarises the main points effectively.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is limited but minimally adequate for the task, allowing the writer to communicate basic ideas about water supply and government budgets. However, there are noticeable errors in word choice, word form, and spelling that occasionally cause difficulty for the reader. Examples include 'goverments' (spelling), 'price of clean water' instead of 'price for clean water', 'efficency' (spelling), and 'maintance' (spelling). The writer also uses unidiomatic collocations like 'massive price'. To achieve a higher band, the writer must expand their lexical repertoire to include less common vocabulary with greater precision, pay closer attention to spelling and word forms, and use appropriate prepositional collocations.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The writing relies on a limited range of sentence structures, and attempts at complex sentences are frequently faulty. There are several noticeable grammatical errors throughout the text, including passive voice construction errors such as 'a reasonable fee must charge' instead of 'must be charged', missing articles ('In southeast asia an average family spent'), and agreement errors like 'water filtration plants required' instead of 'require'. Punctuation and fragment issues are also present, such as starting a sentence with a relative clause: 'Which eventually boost country's economic growth.' Frequent errors across basic and complex structures cause some difficulty for the reader. To progress, the writer needs to demonstrate better control over verb forms, passive structures, articles, and sentence boundaries.

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