Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-09-28

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 most of the nations, public do not recycle their garbage as much as they could. The possible reasons for this act are that there are not alot of facilities available for the recycling and people are also not aware of the term recycling. To tackle this situation, government should take possible steps to encourage people to recycle their trash.

In many countries, people donot recycle their wastes. One possible factor is that residents of most of the nations are not familiarize of the term recycling, especially the illiterate people. They used the stuff and throw the rubbish in the bin without knowning that it can be reused. For instance, people buy bottles and after drinking, they throw they empty bottle in the rubbish can without knowing it can be recycled. On the other hand, if they have knowledge of recycling, there are very less facilities available in the countries for recycling.

In order to change this, governemnt should take all the possible steps to recycle most of the rubbish. They should install multiple bins based on the category of the waste. Their must be a separate bin for glass, plastic and paper wastes. These can then be sent to the factories for recycling purposes. Furthermore, they should also take possible steps to make public follow these rules and heavy fines must be imposed on the people who donot follow them. Moreover, proper trainings should be arranged for everyone to teach them about the importance of recycling and how it can be advantageous to our environment.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt, discussing both the reasons why people do not recycle as much as they could and providing solutions to change this situation. The writer identifies lack of facilities and lack of awareness as the main causes, and suggests installing multiple bins, imposing heavy fines, and conducting training as solutions. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited and repetitive, particularly regarding the lack of knowledge, which prevents the response from reaching higher band levels. Examples such as buying and throwing away bottles are given, but overall the support remains basic. This aligns well with the Band 6 descriptor where all parts are addressed, but some ideas are slightly under-developed.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay has a clear overall arrangement with a standard introduction, body paragraphs, and a concluding set of ideas. Paragraphing is utilized, with distinct sections for reasons and solutions. However, the progression of ideas is occasionally disrupted by mechanical and repetitive cohesive devices (e.g., repetitive use of 'without knowing' and 'possible steps'). Referencing is sometimes unclear, and logical links between sentences can be abrupt. For instance, the transition from the lack of knowledge to the lack of facilities in the second paragraph lacks a smooth connective thread. These features place the response firmly at Band 5.5, rounded to Band 6 for acceptable overall organisation.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, allowing the student to communicate basic ideas about rubbish and recycling. There are attempts to use less common vocabulary items such as 'advantageous', 'illiterate', and 'facilities', but these are accompanied by noticeable spelling and word choice errors, such as 'alot', 'donot', 'familiarize' instead of 'familiar', and 'knowning' instead of 'knowing'. The range is somewhat limited, and repetition of words like 'rubbish', 'recycling', and 'possible' restricts the score to a Band 5.5, showing characteristics of both Band 5 and Band 6.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, including conditional structures like 'if they have knowledge of recycling, there are very less facilities available'. However, grammatical errors and inappropriate word forms occur frequently throughout the text, such as 'public do not' (missing article), 'there are very less facilities' (incorrect quantifier 'fewer'), 'governemnt should' (spelling), and 'Their must be' (incorrect homophone for 'There'). While these errors do not completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to detract from grammatical control, fitting the Band 5.5 to 6.0 range 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.