Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-08-18

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries and contributes a great deal to economies around the world. However, the damage tourism can cause to local cultures and the environment is often ignored.

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

In recent years, tourism has been considered a subject of debate. Some people claim that it plays an important role in economies around the world, while others argue that it causes damage to local cultures and the environment. I strongly agree with the latter statement that tourism affect local culture as well as the environment.

Firstly, tourism helps in growing economy, because tourists use airlines to travel to and from their destined area. For example, in summers, thousands of people use domestic as well as international flights to move towards cold areas. They apply for visas and buy tickets for their trips, as a result a lot of revenue generates for a state. Secondly, tourists live in hotels and guests houses, eat food, and shop for their families when they visit any foreign country. It generates income for the government as well as for local business owners. For example, when people visit any cross-culture country, they get fascinated by their traditional cultural products, like clothes, accessories, and household items and buy as souvenirs for their family and friends.

Although tourism is advantageous for countries in terms of financial benefits, it comes at a cost of damage to local cultures and the environment. The governments and local authorities make residential buildings and restaurants for visitors. In this way, they destroy natural beauty of forests and streams of local areas. In addition, the massive number of tourists' travel increases fuel consumption, which led to emission of gases and carbon footprint, ultimately results in climate change.

In conclusion, tourism contributes a great deal to economies globally, however, developments made to facilitate tourists cause damage to natural environment as well as local cultures.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt, clearly stating a position in the introduction. However, the development of ideas is somewhat uneven. While you provide reasons for both the economic benefits and the negative impacts, the discussion on cultural damage is quite brief compared to the environmental points. To reach a higher band, ensure that both aspects mentioned in the prompt (culture and environment) are explored with equal depth. The conclusion is a bit abrupt and does not fully synthesize the arguments presented, merely restating the prompt's premise rather than summarizing your specific points.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is logically organized into clear paragraphs, each with a distinct focus. You use basic cohesive devices such as 'Firstly', 'Secondly', 'In addition', and 'In conclusion' to guide the reader. However, the flow between sentences is sometimes mechanical, and the use of referencing could be more sophisticated. For instance, the transition between the economic benefits and the environmental drawbacks is functional but lacks a more nuanced linking phrase to show a deeper connection between the two sides of the argument. Paragraphing is used appropriately throughout.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, using terms like 'revenue', 'fascinated', 'emission', and 'carbon footprint'. However, there are some inaccuracies in word choice and collocation, such as 'destined area' instead of 'destination' and 'cross-culture country' instead of 'culturally diverse country'. These errors do not impede communication, but they limit the precision of your writing. To improve, focus on learning collocations and using more precise academic vocabulary to express complex ideas more naturally.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While the meaning is generally clear, there are several grammatical errors, such as 'tourism affect' (should be 'affects'), 'a lot of revenue generates' (should be 'is generated'), and 'led to emission' (should be 'leads to the emission'). Punctuation is generally correct, but some articles are missing or misused. The frequency of these errors suggests a need for more careful proofreading, particularly regarding subject-verb agreement and passive voice construction, to ensure higher accuracy in your complex sentences.

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