Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-10-18

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)

In many countries, people do not recycle their waste as much as they can, because of their conditioning and to help them get adapted to this change we need to make them use to this change.

As we are moving towards growth and development, it is essential to take care of our environment while promoting sustainable development. However many people in various countries dispose their waste without recycling, as a result it can harm our ecosystem. This mainly happens because of lack of adaptability people are not not conditioned to dispose their waste by recycling, this change can be brought by government by promoting the importance of recycling. For eg: Government can run campaigns for bringing this change in the society, when people will get used to the campaign they will eventually adapt to this change. Government can promote the importance and the advantages of recycling as well.

Another reason is due to unawareness among the community. People are unaware of how they can reuse or recycle their waste. Many people in remote areas would find this solution cost effective but due to lack of education and awareness they generally dispose it just like other waste. As a result to bring this change; schools can run community programs to educate children because with the help of younger generation we can build the future of the world. There are many cases where due to lack of education and awareness people dispose their waste, but when schools and government together take initiatives to promote this change with the help of campaigns it can be effective.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion4.5
Lexical Resource5.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.0

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address both parts of the question: you identify limited familiarity and lack of awareness as reasons, then suggest government campaigns and school/community education. These are relevant ideas, and the examples of campaigns and school programmes help make the response concrete. However, the explanations remain general and partly overlap: both reasons are presented as a lack of adaptation or education, without showing clearly how practical barriers such as inconvenient collection systems might also affect recycling. The proposed actions are not developed in detail—for example, explain what a campaign would teach or how schools could involve families. A clearer, more fully supported account of each cause and solution would make the response more complete.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.5

The response has an identifiable overall structure: an opening, a paragraph about adaptation and government campaigns, and a paragraph about awareness and education. This gives the reader a basic route through the ideas. However, progression within and between paragraphs is not consistently clear. The opening repeats the idea of adapting to change, and the first body paragraph moves from environmental harm to causes and then solutions in a crowded sequence. Linking phrases such as “As a result” and “this change” recur, sometimes without a precise reference, while the final sentence repeats earlier points rather than providing a distinct conclusion. Use clearer topic sentences, separate causes from solutions, and make each reference explicit to improve the flow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant topic vocabulary, including “sustainable development,” “ecosystem,” “recycling,” and “community programs,” so the reader can understand the subject and your main points. There is also some attempt to express abstract ideas, such as “lack of adaptability.” However, the range is limited by repeated wording—especially “change,” “promote,” “awareness,” and “dispose”—and several choices are unnatural or imprecise. For example, “conditioning” and “get adapted” do not express the intended idea naturally, and “dispose their waste by recycling” is awkward. Aim for more precise collocations and vary repeated terms; this will make the argument clearer and more fluent without changing its meaning.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and longer sentences, including clauses introduced by “because,” “as a result,” and “when.” This shows some willingness to connect ideas, but complex sentences are often faulty, and errors occur frequently enough to make parts of the response less smooth to read. For example, “This mainly happens because of lack of adaptability people are not not conditioned” joins clauses without suitable punctuation or a connector and repeats “not.” Other issues include “people dispose their waste” and the semicolon in “As a result to bring this change; schools,” which disrupts the sentence structure. Practise building one clear main clause with correctly attached supporting clauses, and check articles, punctuation, and sentence boundaries.

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

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