Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-04

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)

I don't think that reducing the number of times to fly every year or stop flying altogether will help the environment significantly. Flying is one mode of transportation, skipping this does not mean skipping the travel altogether. Flying is the only mode of transportation now a days for most of intercontinental routes. And for other routes, most alternative to flying are not environment friendly either. For example if someone want to travel from Pakistan to USA for educational purposes, only method of travel available is flying. Although it can help enviromentally if someone skip flying for unnecessaey travel but when there is requirement it is unavoidable. If someone has to travel within country or to a neighbouring country there might be few alternatives to flying including car, train or bus. All these methods also release emissions to the environment. Although electric trains or cars look environment friendly but if we analyze the whole energy chain at some point these methods are also adding carbon footprints to the surroundings. For a diplomatic mission, for example president of a country, it is not an option to travel by air, it is a requirement of job nature due to security reasons. Most of business travels bring more value to the society than skipping it altogether. It is true that we can reduce carbon footprint while traveling for entertainement purposes by changing the location or route of travel. But most of business or study travels are unavoidable. A better alternative is contribute towards society by planting trees according to own capacity to reduce carbon footprint instead of skipping a travel by air altogether.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by presenting a clear position that the disadvantages of reducing air travel outweigh the environmental benefits. Relevant ideas are introduced, such as the lack of viable transport alternatives for intercontinental routes and the economic and diplomatic necessity of business and official travel. However, some ideas are under-developed rather than fully extended. For instance, the point regarding business travel bringing value to society is stated rather than explained with concrete examples. Similarly, the argument about alternative transport chains adding carbon footprints is introduced briefly without detailed expansion. To reach a higher level, the writer needs to explore these arguments more fully with detailed support and explanation.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement and a clear stance from the beginning. However, the organization suffers notably from a lack of paragraphing; the entire response is written as a single, dense block of text, which significantly hinders the logical progression and visual structure of the essay. While basic cohesive devices are used to connect ideas, such as "For example" and "Although", referencing and logical flow are sometimes faulty because transitions between distinct arguments happen abruptly within the same unbroken block. To improve, the writer must divide the response into clear paragraphs, dedicating each paragraph to a single main idea with appropriate cohesive links between sentences.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, allowing the writer to communicate their main arguments about travel and carbon footprints. There are attempts to use less common vocabulary, such as "intercontinental routes", "diplomatic mission", and "carbon footprints". However, there are noticeable inaccuracies in word choice, collocation, and word form throughout the text. Examples include writing "times to fly" instead of "frequency of flying", "enviromentally" and "unnecessaey" as spelling slips, "environment friendly" instead of "environmentally friendly", and "entertainement purposes". Additionally, phrases like "contribute towards society by planting trees according to own capacity" lack natural phrasing. These errors do not seriously impede communication, but they reflect a limited precision that keeps the vocabulary score at the current level.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The essay demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing structures with subordinating conjunctions such as "Although it can help environmentally if someone skip flying..." and "If someone has to travel within country...". There are several errors in grammar and punctuation, particularly involving subject-verb agreement, missing articles, and prepositions. For example, the student writes "someone skip flying" instead of "someone skips", omits necessary articles in phrases like "for educational purposes" and "within country", and uses awkward prepositional phrasing. Punctuation is also sparse, contributing to run-on structures. Despite these errors, they rarely impede overall communication, and the sentence structures show adequate control for basic complex forms.

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