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)

A number of people these days have started to minimize travelling by airplanes or to avoid it completely. This subtle decision have effects of paramount importnce on our enviroment, individuals and businesses. Overall, i believe that it have more negative affects than the positive one's.

It can be argued that lack of flights will have an advantage of keeping a substainable environment. When a small number of people will travel through airplanes, there will be lesser flights. This will safe plane fuel and decrease air pollution to good extent as airplane engine consumes an enormouse amount of petrol and produce alot of smoke. It also use alot of clean water to cool down ite engine thus, will protect drinking water as well.

futhermore, travelling through air is also very expensive. It costs more money than other means of travelling. Resultantly, creating financial more burdon on poor and middle class people.Therefore, It is not preferred often.

however, It's impact on the individuals and businesses is of grave importance as they effect the economy of a country. For instance, if there will be fewer flights, the plane companies will face a great loss which will lead to decreased salaries of employees, resultantly effecting individual's life.

On the other hand, if a large number of people start to travel by roads or local transport, it will accumulate a flood of people and will create pressure on these means of transport. The roads will start to throng leading to accidents and traffic issues.

In the Conclusion, It can be said that flying through planes for larger distances and travelling through other means for shorter one's is the most convenient way. We can minimize unnecessary air travelling and protect our enviroment and also add in our country's well-being by not completely avoiding flights.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing both the environmental benefits and the disadvantages for individuals and businesses, presenting a clear position that the negative aspects outweigh the positive ones. However, the development of ideas is uneven. While the environmental arguments about fuel and pollution are reasonably supported, other points remain under-developed or somewhat unclear, such as the claim regarding airplanes consuming 'clean water' to cool engines, which lacks accurate reasoning. Ideas are relevant, but some sections tend to over-generalize or rely on simplistic arguments rather than extending the points with fully realized examples, keeping the response at a level where some parts are addressed more fully than others.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

There is a coherent overall arrangement with paragraphs used to separate distinct ideas, such as environmental benefits, financial aspects, and impacts on businesses and local transport. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical and referencing is not always clear, with repetitive transitional phrases like 'Therefore' and 'however' used awkwardly. Paragraphing is attempted, but logical progression between sentences occasionally breaks down, such as the abrupt transition from air travel costs directly into business impacts without a smooth introductory link. The use of cohesive devices shows a lack of flexibility, resulting in an organization that feels somewhat disjointed in places.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The writer uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task and attempts less common items, such as 'paramount importance' and 'enormous amount'. However, there are noticeable spelling errors ('importnce', 'enviroment', 'substainable', 'enormouse', 'futhermore', 'burdon', 'effect', 'failing') and word-choice inaccuracies ('petrol' instead of 'aviation fuel', 'safe' instead of 'save', 'clean water'). While these errors do not completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to highlight limitations in lexical control and precision, preventing the use of a more flexible or sophisticated range of language.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writing displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating an attempt at varied structures. However, there are frequent errors in grammar and agreement, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('decision have', 'it have', 'engine consumes... and produce', 'it also use', 'they effect'), capitalization errors ('i', 'however'), punctuation issues, and missing articles ('on poor and middle class people'). While these errors rarely completely impede communication, they are persistent throughout the text and demonstrate that attempts at complex structures are often faulty, reflecting a limited range of reliable grammatical control.

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