Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-09-12

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In many countries, people do not recycle their rubbish as much as they could.

Why do you think this is? What can be done to change this?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 5.5)

In the recent years, citizens feel reluctant to reuse the things that they once used and are not in favor of recycling strategy according to their capabilities in numerous countries. Off the top of my head, I think it as a very embarrasing act not to utilize the things that they really could be. There should be proper awareness among citizens about using the previous or already available goods as compared to buying new ones.

Today, the craze of having more or more expensive and unique items is rising enormuosly among the residents of any nation in order to show off or just to satisfy the society, that they can buy anything they want at anytime. They do not give attention towards recycling their luggage and interesting in shopping for others. For instance, plastic bags, usually used by females while going for grocery, have adverse effect on environment as they taking more time in decomposition. Moreover, the people demands for new plastic bags everytime for everything intead of using only one or taking bags of other stuff like paper or cardboard that are eco-friendly. Such irresponsible behaviour of consumers results in a plenty of shoppers on the road causing pollution and damaging the ecosystem. Along with this ill-mannerd action, they are not interesting in recycling or reusing the things despite they see such containers on the roadsied daily for recycling purpose.

This is unethical to ignore eco-friendly recycling practices as they contribute to enhance earth's health and beauty. The governmental organaizations responsible for sustaining environmental cleanliness should take action against this concept. The 3R's strategies should become common in a society and among citizens in order to evoke a sense of keeping their surroundings clean. Government should take serious actions against such citizens who violate the rules regarding to environmental regulations. By these changes, there is a strong chance of improving earth's health and environmental sustainability.

In conclusion, I would like to suggest the local citizens to be more responsible in this matter as it is concern of all of us not only of government or serious residents. Because changes start only when all the sources get involved. Hence, everyone should keen to protect their atmosphere and land by developing the habit of recycling goods.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses both parts of the prompt, exploring the reasons why people fail to recycle (consumerism, lack of awareness, convenience) and offering solutions (governmental regulations, educational awareness, the 3Rs strategy). The position is clear throughout the text. However, some ideas are slightly under-developed or expressed with imprecise terminology, such as referring to plastic bags as 'luggage' and 'shoppers'. While the main arguments are relevant and supported with an example of plastic bag usage, the depth of discussion prevents the response from reaching the highest band levels. Overall, the task is adequately addressed in line with Band 6 requirements.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is generally coherent with a clear overall arrangement into introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate ideas. However, cohesion within and between sentences is sometimes faulty or mechanical. Expressions like 'Off the top of my head' are overly informal and inappropriate for an academic essay. Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as 'they taking more time in decomposition' where pronoun reference is confusing. Cohesive devices are used, but sometimes inaccurately, which places this text securely in the Band 6 category for cohesion.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary used provides an adequate range for the task, with some attempts at less common items such as 'eco-friendly', 'consumerism', and 'environmental sustainability'. However, there are notable word choice and collocation errors that impede natural expression, such as referring to plastic bags as 'luggage' and 'shoppers' instead of shopping bags or plastics. Additionally, spelling and word form errors occur, such as 'embarrasing', 'enormuosly', 'ill-mannerd', and 'organaizations'. Because these lexical inaccuracies and spelling errors are noticeable and recurrent, the response achieves a Band 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some variety in structure. However, there are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text, including tense, preposition, and article issues, such as 'In the recent years', 'I think it as a very', 'people demands', and 'everyone should keen to'. Subject-verb agreement errors are also present, for instance 'citizens feel reluctant... and are... according to their capabilities'. While these errors do not completely obscure the meaning, their frequency causes some difficulty for the reader and prevents the writing from achieving a higher band score.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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