Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-28
IELTS Writing Task 2 question
Many aspects of the way people dress today are influenced by global fashion trends.
How has global fashion become such a strong influence on people's lives? Do you think this is a positive or negative development?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Student answer (Band 5.5)
Global fashion trends are the most influenced factor in today's contemprary world. While people argue about the concerning of the way it is impacting an individuals life, i believe it has a negative development on society.
People seem to be influenced quite easily. It is observed that the way people dress is usually influenced by social media or their favorite celebrity. Global fashion trends are mostly in favor to promote a brand. Moreover, when a celebrity promotes it, it becomes easily accesible. As the companies and brands are almost in every other country, these clothes and brands are easily available at their nearest stores. However, if people are unable to purchase it, they seem to find the similar copies of the desired item, thus profiting local vendor markets.
Neverthless, fashion trends make people stay updated to the market trends, it leads to wastage of clothes in large volumes. People seem to move forward with the upcoming trends. This fast-switching of clothes lead to wastage of efforts put into make these clothes, also more clothes are to be manufactured to statisfy people demands.
I believe that it has a negative development where people unable to follow these trends financially could struggle with their status in public. People could feel self-aware of the clothing brands and pricing of a cloth they are wearing, further lowering their self-esteem.
In conclusion, Although global fashion trends keeps updating, getting influenced by it on a larger extent could change the way you percieve people. Though it offers advantages to small vendors and markets, its disadvatages outwiegh in terms of efforts applied to make a piece of clothing.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5
The response addresses both parts of the prompt: how global fashion influences lives and whether this is a positive or negative development. The writer takes a clear position that the development is negative, mentioning factors like brand promotion, social status pressure, and clothing waste. However, the ideas are somewhat limited and under-developed. For instance, the discussion on clothing waste and social standing is introduced but lacks deep elaboration or concrete examples beyond general statements. The conclusion also introduces a slight contradiction by mentioning advantages to small vendors while maintaining the negative stance without fully integrating this nuance. Consequently, the response aligns best with Band 6.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5
The essay presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear paragraph structure, including an introduction, body paragraphs addressing distinct points, and a conclusion. However, cohesion is sometimes faulty or mechanical. Words like 'Moreover', 'However', and 'Neverthless' are used, but logical transitions between sentences are occasionally weak, such as the abrupt shift in the third paragraph: 'Neverthless, fashion trends make people stay updated to the market trends, it leads to wastage of clothes in large volumes.' Referencing is generally clear, but overall progression can feel disjointed due to grammatical errors interfering with logical flow. This places the response firmly at Band 6.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common items such as 'contemporary', 'accessible', and 'perceive'. However, there are notable spelling errors ('contemprary', 'accessible', 'statisfy', 'disadvatages', 'outwiegh') and awkward word choices or collocations, such as 'the most influenced factor' instead of 'influential factor' and 'concerning of the way' instead of 'concerns about the way'. While communication is not severely impeded, these repeated lexical and spelling inaccuracies prevent the response from reaching a higher band. Therefore, a score of 5.5 is appropriate.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some control over structure. However, there are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues ('clothes lead' or 'disadvantages outweigh', contrasted with 'fast-switching of clothes lead'), preposition errors ('in favor to promote' instead of 'in favor of promoting'), and article misuse ('an individuals life'). Furthermore, sentence fragments and punctuation issues appear, such as comma splices ('...updated to the market trends, it leads to...'). These errors can occasionally cause slight difficulty for the reader, fitting the Band 5 descriptor well.
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.