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)

In the contemporary society, the number of flights taken by people is a phenomenon that is being addressed among a diverse amount of population. It is contented that some people have decided to take less flights or even stop flying every year. Although, there are certain merits in terms of environment, there are certain disadvantages that cannot be ignored.

On the one hand, there is no doubt that an increasing number of flights taken each year contributes to environmental degradation, particularly air pollution. A reduction in the amount of times people fly is more likely to provide positive impacts to the nature. For instance, the emission of chloroflourocarbons is the major reason why many birds are being lost every year. Therefore, in order to conserve the natural habitats, and to reduce the amount of hazardous chemicals released in the atmosphere, the number of times pupils fly should be controlled.

On the other hand, while a reduction in the annual flights play a crucial role in protecting our enviornment, I believe that many individuals and businesses suffer from this. When we talk about individual sufferings, there are the workers who completely rely on the airlines for their livelihoods. Moreover, many private airlines are more likely to undergo financial problems and huge debts as a result of lower flights, because their entire employes are dependent on their customers. An example of this can be given as, due to adverse climatic issues, many important flights of PIA from Pakistan to Dubai got delayed and even cancelled. Eventually, the company suffered and their reputation in the market was destoyed as many people were boycotting it, and decided to not take flights anymore this year. In this way, the overall economy of the country suffers. Since many countries' revenue depends on tourism. If people decides to visit less, the tousist destinations would suffer.

In conclusion, a significant reduction of flights each year are more likely to be environmentally friendly, but they could affect the overall economic conditions of the country.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task, presenting both the environmental benefits and the disadvantages for individuals and businesses, thereby fulfilling the core requirements of the prompt. However, the development of ideas remains somewhat uneven. While the environmental aspect is introduced, the supporting example concerning chlorofluorocarbons and birds is scientifically questionable and somewhat limited in scope. Similarly, in the discussion on disadvantages, the reference to the Pakistan International Airlines example wanders into specific narrative details regarding delayed flights and market boycotts rather than addressing the broader socio-economic impacts on businesses and individuals. The writer's position is generally clear throughout the essay, but the tendency to rely on narrow or slightly tangential examples prevents the ideas from being fully extended and supported.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to structure the argument through standard introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs. Information and ideas are discernible, and logical progression is established through transitional markers such as 'On the one hand' and 'On the other hand'. Nevertheless, cohesion at the sentence level is occasionally mechanical or faulty. For instance, referencing becomes unclear in places, such as when the pronoun 'their' shifts ambiguously between airlines, employees, and customers within the same sentence. Furthermore, paragraphing shows minor weaknesses, as the third paragraph attempts to encompass multiple distinct ideas—individual workers, airline financial debts, flight cancellations, and national tourism revenue—without sufficient division, making the overall progression feel somewhat crowded rather than smoothly managed.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary utilized is minimally adequate for the task, providing a sufficient range to communicate the main arguments. The writer attempts some less common lexical items, such as 'contemporary society', 'environmental degradation', and 'livelihoods', but these attempts are often accompanied by noticeable errors in word choice, spelling, and collocation. Examples include writing 'chloroflourocarbons' with a spelling error, using 'take less flights' instead of 'fewer flights', and employing awkward phrases like 'adverse climatic issues' and 'employes'. While these lexical shortcomings do not completely impede communication, they reflect a limited precision and flexibility in vocabulary usage, placing the lexical control firmly within the mid-range band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The essay demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, though the range of structures remains somewhat limited. The writer attempts complex sentences, but these often contain errors, such as subject-verb agreement issues in phrases like 'a significant reduction of flights each year are' and tense or conditional slip-ups such as 'If people decides to visit less'. Frequent errors in grammar and punctuation persist throughout the text, including awkward relative clauses and prepositional patterns, such as 'reduce the amount of times people fly' and 'released in the atmosphere'. Although these grammatical lapses rarely impede overall comprehension, they occur with enough frequency to show that error-free sentences are not in the majority, restricting the grammatical score.

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