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 one of the fastest growing industries all over the world. Tourism contributes a lot in the economies of countries. However, some people argue that some tourists are polluting environment. Moreover, damage tourism affect the local cultures. I largely agree that tourism affecting the local cultures and polluting environment.

On the one hand, tourism is making a significant impact on country by contributing in economy. Most of countries like Dubai, Saudia arabia are constructing building and making natural tourist points to attract tourist from all over the world. Moreover, their most of economy countribution are coming from tourism. For example, most tourist prefer to visit northern side of Pakistan because of its naturals views. Futhermore, Pakistan government can make a big revenew from this chance making out natural view to tourist points.

On the other hand, damage tourism can cause to local cultures and polluting environment. Most tourists throw garbage on tourist points. Increasing in trousim is affecting climate change by planes emission. In addition, it is making a big impact on environment. Local cultures and traditions are changing because of damage tourism. Cultures and traditions are becoming just part of entertainment.

In my opinion, tourism play a big role in developing of a country. Countries have to invest more to engage more tourist. However, government have to make laws to control envirmental factors.

To conclude, tourism making big impact on the economies of countries. However, they should be controlled by some policies to make a pollution free environment. Government can make policy to protect local cultures and tradition, so that, they cannot be part of just entertainment.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The student addresses all parts of the prompt by discussing the economic benefits of tourism alongside the negative impacts on local cultures and the environment, thereby presenting a clear position. In the introduction, the writer states, 'I largely agree that tourism affecting the local cultures and polluting environment.' Ideas are presented and supported with examples, such as mentioning Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and northern Pakistan. However, some of these ideas are under-developed and tend to over-generalise. For instance, the discussion regarding cultural damage remains quite brief and lacks specific details or fully elaborated examples. Furthermore, the phrasing 'damage tourism' is repeated, which restricts the depth of task exploration. Nevertheless, the main thrust of the prompt is clearly answered, fulfilling the requirements for Band 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The response is structured into five distinct paragraphs, demonstrating a clear overall attempt at organisation with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Cohesive devices such as 'On the one hand', 'On the other hand', 'Moreover', and 'To conclude' are employed to guide the reader through the text. However, referencing and paragraph flow are sometimes mechanical and faulty. For example, the transitional phrase 'damage tourism can cause to local cultures and polluting environment' acts awkwardly as a topic sentence. Additionally, pronouns and cohesive links lack precision in places, such as 'However, they should be controlled by some policies', where the antecedent for 'they' is slightly ambiguous. Paragraphing is used sufficiently, but logical progression between sentences within paragraphs could be smoother to achieve a higher band score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary suited to the task, including terms like 'economies', 'industries', 'climate change', and 'traditions'. However, there are noticeable word choice and collocation errors throughout the text. The phrase 'damage tourism' is used repeatedly instead of 'damaging tourism' or 'the damage caused by tourism'. Other lexical inaccuracies include 'economy countribution', 'naturals views', 'big revenew', and 'envirmental factors'. While these errors do not impede communication and the intended meaning remains understandable, the lack of control over less common vocabulary and spelling limits the lexical score to a Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing structures like relative clauses ('because of its naturals views') and conditional-style phrasing. However, grammatical accuracy is weak, with frequent errors in verb forms, articles, and prepositions. Examples include 'Tourism contributes a lot in the economies' (contributes to), 'tourism affecting the local cultures' (is affecting), 'Most of countries' (Most countries), and 'government have to make laws' (the government has to). Furthermore, punctuation is sometimes neglected, and sentences such as 'Pakistan government can make a big revenew from this chance making out natural view to tourist points' suffer from severe structural strain. Because errors frequently occur and cause some difficulty or hesitation for the reader, the writing sits firmly at Band 5.0.

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.