Band 7.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 7.0 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-10-11

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 7.0)

Tourism has emerged as one of the fastest growing sectors in the global economy. Backed by increased consumerism and disposable incomes, tourists hotspots of the world generate massive revenues from visitors. Disadvantageously, tourism has also materialised as a double edged sword. On one hand, it is a high revenue model. On the other hand, it is capable of degrading the culture and environment.

An influx of visitors brings with it large volumes of human activity to the region. In order to cater to this crowd, tourist spots build their structural capacity. But, they fail to account for the carrying capacity of the land they live on. Himachal Pradesh in India has witnessed an increase in the instances of landslide, attributed to rapid construction acitivity in the region that has destabalised the soil. Similarly, rapid infrastructure building leads to deforestation and pollutants leaching into water bodies.

Another adverse impact of tourism is felt by local cultures and communities. Although many famous tourist places are touted for the local heritage, many tourists come in ignorant of the same. This can hurt the sentiments of the heritage that welcomes them. Furthermore, most local and ancient traditions are built on sustainability and community work. The consumeristic and capitalistic nature of tourism is in direct conflict with these values, making their survival even more difficult.

In conclusion, I believe that the manner of contemporary tourism is detrimental to the health of the environment and local culture that is expected to cater to them. For all three to coexist, we need a better version of exploration that is more sensitive and conscious of its providers.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0

Your position is clear: you argue that contemporary tourism can harm both the environment and local culture, and the conclusion reinforces this view. The response addresses both parts of the concern, with environmental effects illustrated through construction, landslides in Himachal Pradesh, deforestation and water pollution, and cultural effects explained through visitors’ lack of awareness and tourism’s commercial values. These relevant examples and explanations extend the main ideas. To strengthen the response further, develop the cultural argument with a specific example of a tradition or community affected, and qualify broad claims such as “many tourists” arriving ignorant of local heritage. A brief acknowledgement of tourism’s economic or cultural benefits would also make the extent of your agreement more fully nuanced.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.0

The essay has a clear progression: the introduction establishes the issue, the two body paragraphs separately discuss environmental and cultural impacts, and the conclusion restates your position. Signposting such as “On one hand,” “Another adverse impact,” and “In conclusion” helps readers follow the argument, while the Himachal Pradesh example is placed appropriately within the environmental paragraph. Cohesion is generally effective, though some links between claims could be more explicit. For instance, the move from tourists’ lack of awareness to the conflict between tourism and sustainable traditions would benefit from a sentence explaining how visitor behaviour or commercial development produces that conflict. Varying the repeated contrast structure and using clearer references to “these values” would make the progression still smoother.

Lexical Resource: Band 7.0

You use a good range of topic-specific vocabulary, including “disposable incomes,” “carrying capacity,” “deforestation,” “heritage,” and “sustainability.” Phrases such as “double edged sword” and “leaching into water bodies” show an attempt to use less common language and communicate the topic precisely. Some choices, however, are awkward or imprecise: “tourists hotspots” should be “tourist hotspots,” “high revenue model” is not a natural description of tourism, and “the heritage that welcomes them” is unclear. There are also spelling errors in “acitivity” and “destabalised.” Aim for natural collocations and proofread spelling; this will make your otherwise varied vocabulary more consistently precise and fluent.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 7.0

You demonstrate a useful mix of sentence forms, including complex clauses such as “Although many famous tourist places are touted for the local heritage, many tourists come in ignorant of the same” and the conditional construction “For all three to coexist, we need…”. Many sentences are grammatically controlled, and punctuation generally supports the meaning. A few errors or awkward constructions remain. In “tourists hotspots,” the noun modifier should be singular (“tourist hotspots”); “the land they live on” has an unclear pronoun reference, since the land is not what the visitors live on; and “the environment and local culture that is expected to cater to them” has a number mismatch and an unclear relative clause. Review agreement and clause references, and use punctuation consistently after introductory phrases, to improve accuracy.

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