Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-09-25

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)

Many people do not recycle thier rubbish as much as they could in different parts of the world. They prefer to throw rubbish into bins without taking out recycling things such as plastic bottles, soda cans or things made of glass.

Lack of awareness is one of the major factors for not recycling the waste. Recycling has not been introduced well in many regions. For instance, people in Pakistan does not know the concept of recycling. No labelled bins are available. They are not well informed using any advertisment or training. In schools, students are learnt about the cleaniness not abput renewable resources.

For other, recycling is a hard work to do. They think recycling does not create any difference in environment. They lack the education about why we do this. They simply critisize goverment or organizations for creating a new way of making money as they have to buy waste bags for recycling.

Proper law is not enforced to encourage recycling in many countries. People are not accountable for not using recycling bins or bags. If there is a law, persons would be fined for doing this. Countries like Japan, or Germany have propoer law and enforcement to reuse and recycle which made their environment more clean and biodiverse.

To avoid such habits in future, schools and colleges should teach abput the basic of recycling and why is it necessary. They should add in thier syllabus as an important activity to perform in order to pass the class.

For older people, their should be proper training in areas by creating communities to teach and aware them as well.

Moreover, Government should charge fine if citizen is violating the enviromental law. Advertize the bins and bags for this process and teach them in TV channels as well or create banners for this purpose.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response successfully addresses both parts of the prompt: why people do not recycle as much as they could, and what can be done to change this. The student outlines multiple reasons, such as a lack of awareness, the perception that recycling is hard work, and the absence of enforced laws. Practical solutions are also provided, including educational changes in schools, community training for older people, and government fines and advertising campaigns. Ideas are relevant and supported with examples, such as mentioning Japan and Germany. However, some arguments lack deeper elaboration, keeping the task response solidly at a Band 6.0 level.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay has a coherent overall arrangement with clear paragraphing that separates the introduction, causes, solutions, and conclusion. Cohesive devices are used to signal transitions, such as 'For instance', 'For other', and 'Moreover'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical, as seen in the phrasing 'For other, recycling is a hard work' and slightly abrupt paragraph transitions. Paragraphing is utilized sufficiently, but logical progression between sentences can occasionally feel disjointed. Overall, the organizational structure meets the criteria for Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully incorporating topic-specific terms like 'renewable resources', 'biodiverse', and 'environmental law'. However, there are notable limitations and frequent spelling or word-choice errors, such as 'thier' instead of 'their', 'critisize', 'advertizment', and 'abput'. Furthermore, awkward phrases like 'recycling things' and 'charge fine' demonstrate a lack of precision with collocation and word forms, placing the lexical resource score at Band 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as conditional structures ('If there is a law, persons would be fined...'). However, there are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('people in Pakistan does not know', 'their should be proper training', 'citizen is violating'), article omissions ('create a new way'), and preposition errors. While these errors do not severely impede overall communication, they occur too frequently for a higher band, making Band 5.0 an accurate reflection of current control.

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

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