Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-09-17

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)

Tourism is becoming one of the most vigrously growing industry which contributes alot to ones country but the damage that is caused by tourism to the culture and environment is often ignored due to its high profit benefits.

Overall, tourism is one of the best way to boost a country's economy but the damage that it causes to the culture and the mindsets of the local people are also ingnored as its environmental effects are ignored.

I agree to the argument that tourism causes damage to the culture and environment which is often ignored. On the behalf of the culture, when alot of tourists arrive in a country they try to impose their culture over the local traditions.

Many of them try to eradicate the local traditions and influence the local people by their own culture. Many tourists that come to a country bring alot of stuff of their culture with them like clothes and other things that were seen inappropriate in local culture and when local people see them they try to question their culture and try to copy them which is a threat to the local culture.

Tourism is a great solution for a country with alot of natural beauty and not enough resources to eradicate poverty from the country but for a stable country it can cause more damage than benefit. Because many tourists that come to country throw trash on the preserved sights and cause environmental damage that is very costly for a country to reverse.

There was a recent incident where many tourusts came to ones country and they attempted to disrespect the local culture and they also threw alot of trash on the sights that were difficult to clean.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt by discussing both the economic benefits of tourism and the negative impacts on culture and environment. A clear position is established in the introduction and maintained throughout the essay. However, the development of ideas lacks depth and relies on sweeping generalisations and repetition rather than detailed explanations or fully realised examples. For instance, the discussion on how tourists impose culture is somewhat simplistic, and the example provided at the end is vague ("a recent incident where many tourusts came to ones country"). While all parts of the prompt are covered, the support remains underdeveloped, aligning the response with Band 6 descriptors.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a recognisable introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion, though paragraphing is somewhat erratic, with a very brief single-sentence paragraph used for an introduction/overview. Cohesive devices are used, but they are sometimes mechanical or repetitive, such as the frequent reliance on 'Because' to start sentences or repetitive transitions. Referencing is occasionally unclear, as seen with ambiguous pronouns like 'them' and 'their'. There is a logical progression of ideas from economic benefits to cultural and environmental drawbacks, but the overall logical flow is hindered by abrupt transitions and underdeveloped supporting points, pointing to a Band 5.5 or solid 6.0 performance.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common phrases like 'preserved sights' and 'eradicate poverty'. However, there are notable spelling errors ('vigrously', 'ingnored', 'tourusts') and word choice inaccuracies or awkward collocations ('high profit benefits', 'on the behalf of the culture', 'seen inappropriate'). While communication is not severely impeded, these repeated lexical and spelling errors restrict the score to Band 5.5, as the vocabulary lacks the precision and control required for higher bands.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some attempt at subordination and relative clauses ('when alot of tourists arrive in a country they try to impose...'). However, grammatical control is weak, with frequent errors in article usage ('to ones country', 'come to country'), prepositional phrases ('on the behalf of'), subject-verb agreement, and run-on sentences. Punctuation is also neglected in places. Because errors are frequent and occasionally cause strain for the reader while still allowing the general meaning to be understood, the performance corresponds to Band 5.0.

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

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