Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-09-20

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 5.0)

so today i am going to talk about why in many countries people are not recycling the rubbish as they should be doing it for good health and atmosphere.

so many countries which are much more developed than other countries like, america, china, japan, and many other developed countries which do recycle their rubbish and i think the reason is people and law.

why people and law? because if you have fear of rules to throw plastic items in this bin and food leftover in other bin and if you don't do this so you have to pay a huge fine and maybe you will go to jail for it and i said before the people of that country because they were grown like this by their parents they learned about it and then they taught their kids to do this same thing and told them benefits of doing this and cons of not doing this so this law and regulations built up a generation who knows about the benefit of recycling the trash.

and why many countries dont recycle their rubbish because of their poor law and regulations and they are not loyal with their job and for that reason people do not have fear of law because they dont have to pay fine and to go jail for this.

there is one more important thing that is education most countries does not teach the importance of recycling the trash and the people just know the benefits of it and also dont know about the problem which they will face in future like health issues, bad atmosphere, polution, and many other things so my opinion is to start educating about recyling the trash and put the fine for it and government should also put trash bins everywhere with the labeling of plastic items and food leftover and others etc.

and the people should also start compaign of telling the benefits of recycling the trash as well as their problems so like this many people will learn like this and then will teach others as well and we should normalise this thing in our home as well because kids learn from their parents first then they get bigger and go to schools or institutes and this thing will change the world

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses both parts of the prompt, exploring the reasons why people do not recycle as much as they could (such as lack of strict laws, poor enforcement, and lack of education) and offering solutions (stricter fines, better government infrastructure like labeled bins, and educational campaigns). The position is generally clear throughout the text. However, the ideas lack full development and academic depth, relying heavily on generalized statements rather than detailed supporting examples. For instance, the mention of countries like America, China, and Japan is superficial. This performance aligns best with the Band 6 descriptor, where all parts of the task are addressed, but some elements are under-developed.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay lacks proper structural organization, being written as a massive sequence of long, run-on sentences with minimal paragraph breaks. The opening conversational phrase 'so today i am going to talk about' is informal and unsuited for an Academic Task 2 essay. Cohesive devices are repetitive and basic, relying heavily on coordinating conjunctions like 'and' and 'because' to link clauses, rather than using sophisticated discourse markers or clear paragraphing. Referencing is sometimes unclear, such as in the phrase 'and i said before the people of that country'. Overall arrangement is difficult to follow due to the lack of punctuation and standard paragraph structure, fitting the Band 5 descriptor.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The lexical resource is limited and repetitive throughout the text. The student frequently repeats key phrases such as 'recycle their rubbish', 'laws and regulations', and 'benefits of recycling the trash'. There are noticeable spelling and word choice errors, such as 'atmosphere' used instead of 'environment', 'compain' instead of 'campaign', and 'polution' instead of 'pollution'. While the vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey the basic message, the frequent reliance on simple, everyday words and the presence of spelling mistakes restrict the score to a Band 5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The grammatical structure of the essay is heavily constrained by run-on sentences. The entire text relies on compound sentences joined endlessly by 'and' and 'because', completely lacking proper punctuation, capitalisation, and full stops. For example, the sentence starting with 'why people and law?' stretches across multiple ideas without a period. While there are some attempts at complex structures, they are poorly punctuated and often ungrammatical. Frequent errors in punctuation and sentence boundaries cause significant difficulty for the reader, placing the grammar firmly at Band 4.5, rounded to 5.0.

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

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