Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-27
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)
Some people have chosen to reduce the number of times they fly each year, while others have decided to give up flying entirely. Although this trend may create difficulties for individuals and business. Whereas, i believe the environmental benefits are more significant.
One major advantage of flying less is that it can help to reduce the environment damage. Air travel produces a considerable amount of carbon emission, which contribute to climate change. If fewer people travel by air, the demand of flight will be decline and resulting in lower carbon emission. In addition, people can be chosen alter way of travel such as buses and trains for shorter journey. For instance, someone travel by trains for nearly cities instead of taking a flight, which is more environment friendly option.
However, reducing air travel can also have some kind of drawbacks for individuals. As flight is fastest and convenient for long distance travel, especially for those people who have families in other countries. If people stop flying, visiting to relatives and going on international holidays may be more difficult and time-consuming. It can also affect their career if they job required regular international travel.
Business also face same problems. Many companies depend on air travel for international meeting, conferences and business negotiation. Although online meeting can replace internation trip, face to face meeting, still essential for development of professional relationship. Furthermore, airport, airlines, hotels and tourism related business may lose customers if fewer people travel by air, potentially effect employments and local economies.
In conclusion, reducing air travel may cause inconvenience for individuals and financial issues for business. Nevertheless, i believe environment benefits are greater because reducing flight can contribute into lower the carbon emission and encourage the people and companies to consider other sustainable way of traveling and communicating.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5
The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the environmental benefits and the disadvantages for individuals and businesses, presenting a clear overall position. The ideas are generally relevant, but some points lack full development. For example, the mention that 'people can be chosen alter way of travel' is somewhat brief and could be better illustrated. Similarly, the discussion on business impacts covers meetings and tourism, but could delve deeper into economic consequences. Overall, the prompt is adequately answered and achieves a Band 6.0 performance under Task Achievement criteria.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5
The essay is coherent overall with a clear progression of ideas from introduction, through body paragraphs covering individual and business perspectives, to a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas. However, there are some issues with cohesion and sentence linking. For instance, the second sentence of the introduction is a fragment ('Whereas, i believe the environmental benefits are more significant.'). Furthermore, some cohesive devices feel slightly repetitive or mechanical. Despite these flaws, the structure is easy to follow, aligning well with the Band 6 descriptor.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common words and phrases such as 'considerable amount of carbon emission' and 'sustainable way of traveling'. However, there are notable lexical and word-form errors throughout the text, such as 'environment damage' instead of 'environmental damage', 'demand of flight will be decline' instead of 'demand for flights will decline', and 'effect employments' instead of 'affect employment'. These inaccuracies do not impede communication, placing the response securely at Band 6.0.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5
The text displays a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including conditional and relative clauses. However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are frequent errors with verb tenses, prepositions, and articles, such as 'someone travel by trains for nearly cities' instead of 'someone traveling by train to nearby cities', 'visiting to relatives' instead of 'visiting relatives', and lowercase 'i'. While these errors do not prevent the reader from understanding the argument, they occur regularly and limit the score to Band 5.5.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
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