Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-09-18

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)

Tourism is a great blessing for many places in the world but some people may consider it a threat to local culture and environment. From my perspective, tourism comes with alot of benifits but it is very important to respect and conserve both local culture and environment of tourist spots.

Tourism has great benifits especially for the local population and industries. Tourism contributes alot in world economies especially iin countries like Phillipines, Egypt, Thailand etc. It keeps local industries running in tourist places like northren Pakistan. It provides recognition to countries on global level. It introduces local culture and industries to people across the world. It provides employment to a large number of locals.

In contrast to the advantages, Tourism comes with a lots of disadvantages like damage caused to local culture and environment. It has been observed on various occasions that tourists do not respect local culture and cause damage to cultural infrastructure. The most recent example of this is the video circulating over the internet in which an indian man is seen climbing the top of a stupa in Nepal which was seen disrespectful by the locals. Toursists often visit places and leave their garbage behind them which ruins the beauty of that place for example fairy meadows in Pakistan.

In conclusion, the positive side of tourism is often glamourized it but the negative sign needs attention. On the other lack of civic sense in a few poeple can not be used to justify that tourism is a bad thing. Nowadays people are getting more and more concerned about this problem and they have started calling out the tourists for their actions which many tourists consider to be racist or hostile. People should respect the local culture while visting a place and should carry their trash with them. Moreover, the government can take a few steps to prevent the tourists from ruining and tourist spot like introducing fines or making it compulsory to visit only with a local tour gide.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The student addresses all parts of the prompt, expressing a clear position that while tourism brings significant economic and social benefits, it is crucial to protect local cultures and the environment. Ideas are extended with relevant examples, such as referencing the Philippines, Egypt, and Thailand for economic contributions, and specific instances like the incident in Nepal or the Fairy Meadows in Pakistan. However, there is a tendency to rely on a list-like structure of brief sentences in the second body paragraph, which prevents the ideas from achieving full academic depth and elaboration. Nevertheless, a well-supported position is maintained throughout, fitting the criteria for Band 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The response has a coherent overall arrangement with clear paragraphing, dividing the introduction, advantages, disadvantages, and conclusion into distinct blocks. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'In contrast to the advantages' and 'In conclusion', but referencing and linking within paragraphs can sometimes feel mechanical or repetitive (e.g., multiple consecutive sentences starting with 'Tourism...'). Logical progression is maintained, though paragraph transitions could be smoother and more sophisticated to secure a higher band. Overall, the organizational structure is adequate and fulfills the requirements for a Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common words and phrases like 'glamourized', 'civic sense', and 'infrastructure'. However, there are noticeable spelling errors throughout the essay, such as 'alot' (instead of 'a lot'), 'benifits' (instead of 'benefits'), 'iin' (instead of 'in'), 'northren' (instead of 'northern'), 'Toursists' (instead of 'Tourists'), 'visting' (instead of 'visiting'), 'gide' (instead of 'guide'), and capitalization errors like 'indian'. These lexical and spelling inaccuracies occasionally detract from the reading experience, placing the response firmly at Band 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The writer uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating conditional ideas and relative clauses ('which ruins the beauty', 'which was seen disrespectful'). However, grammatical errors are frequent, including missing articles ('to visit only with a local tour gide'), preposition errors ('climbing the top' instead of 'climbing to the top'), and punctuation issues. Furthermore, some sentence structures are awkward, such as 'On the other lack of civic sense in a few poeple can not be used to justify that tourism is a bad thing'. These errors do not entirely impede communication, but they are frequent enough to warrant a Band 5.5.

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