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

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)

Many individuals have traveled every year by air thousand times. Some individuals take a decision to reduce the number of times they fly every year. While some people have chosen to stop flying altogether. Although this decision can create some disadvantages for individuals and businesses, in my opinion the enviromental benefits of this development are greater. This essay will explain points properly.

First and foremost, there are some disadvantages of this decision.Firstly, it will be so much time consuming if people stop flying by air. Some people want to go for meet their sick parents, business meetings or other purposes. If they use other trasport like train, bus or ship. It will take much more time than train and it won't be convinient at all.Moreover, some businesses will also suffer for this decision because many companies depend on international meetings, conferences and business trips. For instance, if any company want to sent their employees to join a buisness meeting, which can be more difficult without air travels.

In contrast, reducing flights can provide sufficient enviromental benefits. Traveling by a plane release a lot of carbon di oxide and other greenhouse gases which reduce the ozon layer of earth. As a result, greenhouse effect hampers a lot in the earth. If people can reduce the number of times they fly every year, the number of the flights will be decreased. As a result the ammount of greenhouse gases will reduced. On the other hand, reducing flights can also aware peoples about enviroment and they will use less flights to keep safe the enviroment. For example, if a person travel by train without using plane for the same distance. It will be much more beneficial for the enviroment.

In conclusion, there are a lot of advantages using planes to travel for person or businesses. Nevertheless, I believe enviroment is more important and anything could be done for enviroment because lower air travel can help reduce less greenhouse gas emission and encourage people to use greener vehicle to save the enviroment.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You addressed all parts of the task by discussing both the environmental benefits and the disadvantages for individuals and businesses, and you maintained a clear position throughout the essay. However, your ideas were not all developed to the same level. For instance, while you mentioned that businesses rely on international meetings and travel, this point remained somewhat limited and lacked specific elaboration or concrete examples compared to your environmental arguments. To reach a higher level, you need to extend and support all your main ideas equally with deeper explanations or more robust examples.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

Your essay has a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, satisfying the basic structural requirements of an academic essay. However, the cohesion between and within sentences is sometimes mechanical or faulty. You relied heavily on repetitive transitional markers like 'First and foremost', 'Firstly', and 'In contrast', and referencing was occasionally unclear, such as the pronoun use in 'hampers a lot in the earth'. Paragraphing is used, but the logical progression between sentences could be smoother. To improve, you should use a wider variety of cohesive devices more naturally and ensure your ideas flow seamlessly from one to the next.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You demonstrated an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common words and phrases such as 'greenhouse gases' and 'international meetings'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word choice errors throughout the text, such as 'enviromental' instead of environmental, 'ammount' instead of amount, and awkward phrasing like 'aware peoples about enviroment'. While these inaccuracies do not seriously impede communication, they occur frequently enough to prevent a higher score. To progress, you should work on precision in word choice, correct spelling, and more accurate collocations.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You used a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting complex structures with conditional clauses such as 'If people can reduce the number of times they fly every year...'. However, your grammatical range is somewhat limited, and your attempts at complex sentences are frequently faulty. There are several errors in grammar and punctuation, including subject-verb agreement issues like 'traveling by a plane release', article errors, and awkward prepositional usage. Although these errors rarely completely impede communication, they are present throughout the essay. To achieve a higher band, you need to produce more error-free sentences when using complex structures and improve your overall control of grammatical rules.

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.