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)

In recent years, many individuals decided to reduce their air travel or stop flying together due to the concerns about environment damage. While this development may create certain difficulties for individuals and businesses to run their operation with less revenue. I strongly believe that environment benefits clearly outweight the disadvantages in this case.

The one significant advantage for this development is less air pollution, For example, when people prefer to take less flights for any cause for the environment improvement this may directly help to improve the air quality of the country which will be more clean than before. However the second important benefit is there will be low chances of Global Warming effect that means the climate change will be more safe and serious weather conditions will not be harsh in any season. Futhermore, the imporant benifit is for nature life as well which improves weather conditions that will be benificial for animals, forests, birds and for human being as well. While the other advantage is for human being, health by inhailing the fresh air people will be more active and healthy and the chances of of getting health diseases decreased significantly.

In contrast, there are some disadvantages to consider. The biggest concern is for businesses they facelosses if demand of flights decresed. For example if previously they are making 60% profie from their business now their profit will half to 30% that result in huge losses for the businesses. However, the second important disadvantage of this development is there will be huge decline in number of tourism sector, where people will not travel to other countries to save the environment from damage that result economic loss for the country.

But i believe that these disdavantages are not more then valuable than environment damage because environment issues may caused serious thread for all the worldwide.

In conclusion, many indviduals decided to reduced their travel that results less airpollution, chances of global warming reduced, nature life will be improved and health issues of human may decline as well. while the disadvantages for businesses are they will face the huge financially loss due less flight operation, the percentage fo tourism within the country will decline sharply and even some people will lose their jobs as well due to heavy loss of businesses. In my point of view i highly support environmental benifits outweigh over the disadavantages.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response addresses all parts of the task and presents a clear overall position regarding the topic, successfully bridging the requirements for a mid-tier band and the next level up. The writer attempts to weigh both the environmental benefits and the disadvantages for individuals and businesses. The main ideas, such as reduced air pollution and economic impacts on tourism and airlines, are relevant and understandable. However, some ideas are a bit repetitive or under-developed, particularly when discussing nature life and health benefits, which lack extended support or specific examples. To reach a higher level, the arguments need to be more fully expanded with deeper analysis rather than simply listing general points.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay demonstrates a coherent overall arrangement with clear paragraphing that separates the introduction, body paragraphs discussing advantages and disadvantages, and the conclusion. There is a discernible logical progression from environmental pros to economic cons. However, cohesion at times feels somewhat mechanical or faulty, with frequent reliance on basic linkers like 'However', 'Futhermore', and 'And' rather than smooth transitions. Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as pronoun use and sentence boundary errors where independent clauses are incorrectly joined or punctuated. To improve further, the writer should employ a wider and more natural range of cohesive devices and ensure that referencing within and between sentences is tighter and more precise.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The student displays an adequate range of vocabulary to communicate the main arguments, attempting less common items such as 'environmental damage', 'Global Warming effect', and 'tourism sector'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors that recur throughout the text, including 'together' instead of 'altogether', 'environment' instead of 'environmental', 'benifit', 'inhailing', 'decresed', 'profie', 'disdavantages', and 'indviduals'. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they restrict the lexical score. To achieve a higher band, the writer must expand their control of word forms, spelling, and collocations, aiming for greater precision and fewer mechanical lexical errors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating an attempt to incorporate subordination and relative clauses. Nevertheless, there is a limited control of structures when attempting complexity, resulting in frequent grammatical errors. These include issues with verb forms and tenses, such as 'many individuals decided' instead of 'have decided', article omissions, preposition usage, and run-on sentences. For instance, the sentence structure in 'While this development may create certain difficulties for individuals and businesses to run their operation with less revenue. I strongly believe...' incorrectly separates a dependent clause from its main clause. To progress, the writer needs to increase sentence variety while drastically reducing basic grammatical and punctuation errors.

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.