Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-13

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people have decided to reduce the number of times they fly every year or to stop flying altogether.

Do you think the environmental benefits of this development outweigh the disadvantages for individuals and businesses?

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

In order to ensure environmental benefits, some individuals have decided to decrease the time periods they fly every year or to eliminate flying altogether which have been a matter of discussion nowadays. However, I strongly agree this development undermine the disadvantages for people and businesses.

First and foremost, communication has been crucial in this technologically advanced world to run the worldwide economy. Flying is keeping a beneficial role to make it easier. People can now easily move to other country for education, treatment, business and other purposes. This convenient movement has made life more comfortable in all aspects such as mutual relationship among different countries which helps the countries' economies to thrive. If the flying facilities are reduced in favor of environment, the overall economy and life standards of people will be hampered.

However, flying requires a huge amount of fuel which leads to carbon emissions in the air. This causes air pollution and global warming, and ruins the ozone level of the atmosphere which affect badly on the living creatures of the world by creating greenhouse effects. For instance, air pollution causes 'Asma' and many other diseases. Furthermore, huge amount of fuel affects on the economy of a country. Nonetheless, using renewable energy can reduce carbon emissions and letting flying amount stay unchanged can lead to economic development.

In conclusion, though environmental awareness has become a major issue in this technological world, reducing number of times people fly or stopping flying together overweighs the disadvantages for individuals and business. Rather environmental benefits can be achieved by other methods like using sustainable or recycling materials as fuel.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt by discussing both the environmental benefits and the disadvantages for individuals and businesses, presenting a clear position. However, the writer appears to contradict themselves between the introduction and the conclusion regarding whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, stating in the intro that they 'strongly agree this development undermine the disadvantages' (likely meaning 'outweigh'), but then in the conclusion stating that reducing flying 'overweighs the disadvantages'. This creates some confusion about the writer's final stance. Furthermore, the ideas regarding economic impacts and health issues (such as mentioning 'Asma') are relevant but remain somewhat underdeveloped. Therefore, the task response aligns well with Band 6 descriptors.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay displays a generally coherent overall arrangement with logical paragraphing, separating the introduction, economic arguments, environmental arguments, and the conclusion. Cohesive devices are used to guide the reader, such as 'First and foremost', 'However', and 'Furthermore'. Nevertheless, referencing and logical progression are occasionally faulty, particularly in the transitions between paragraphs. For example, the second body paragraph starts with 'However,' but shifts abruptly to discussing the negative environmental impacts of fuel consumption after the previous paragraph focused on economic benefits, creating a slightly disjointed flow. These minor cohesion issues place the response firmly in the Band 6 category.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student attempts a range of vocabulary suitable for the academic prompt, using terms like 'technologically advanced world', 'worldwide economy', 'carbon emissions', and 'renewable energy'. However, there are notable word choice and spelling inaccuracies that prevent a higher band, such as 'Asma' instead of asthma, and awkward phrasings like 'flying is keeping a beneficial role' instead of 'playing a beneficial role'. Additionally, collocation errors occur, such as 'ruins the ozone level' and 'affect badly on'. Despite these inaccuracies, communication is not impeded, demonstrating an adequate lexical range for a Band 6 score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional structures (e.g., 'If the flying facilities are reduced in favor of environment...'). However, grammatical errors are frequent throughout the response. Examples include tense and verb agreement errors like 'which have been a matter', incorrect prepositions such as 'affects on the economy' (instead of 'affects the economy'), and missing articles. While these errors do not severely impede communication, they occur regularly enough to prevent the essay from reaching Band 7, making Band 6 an accurate reflection of the student's grammatical control.

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