Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-08-04

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

The best way to provide enough homes in large cities is to build tall apartment blocks.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Many people argues that consructing tall apartment blocks in major cities are the most effective solution. I strongly agree with this view, tall apartments can provide enough homes to dense population of cities because it preserves the farmland and green spaces.

First and foremost, benefit of erecting tall housing apartments is that it reduces the noise pollution, air pollution, environmental pollution and provides housing for large population on a relativity small footprint area. This preserve urban land and surrounding areas from deforestration and unnecessary expansion. For example, big cities like tokyo and singapore provides large tall apartments for their dense population and deployed the infrastructure in an efficient way like transport, hopital, schools are very near from apartments.

On the Other hand, some peoples like single building stories which includes a garden and swimming-pool because they have young children so they want greenry, and a playing area as well. This can be addressed by municipal authorities by building small park area and good facilities for the children near apartments so more and more people should live in apartments.

By contrast, some individuals face problems in tall appartments blocks because it requires modern infrastructure, state of the art facilities, which becomes much hard for low-income peoples. And also it increases the prices which makes the housing issue prevalent for low-income people. This can be solved by integration of local goverment, and private organizations investment so residents can face inclusivity.

In conclusion, constructing tall appartments like five story or six story can solved the urbanizing problem of lands into smaller areas. Additionally, maximizing urban land use in an appropiate manner and by proper planning it's a sustainable approach, dense population areas will get easily accomodated by this method.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt and maintains a clear position throughout. The arguments regarding land preservation and infrastructure efficiency are relevant. However, the development of ideas is somewhat inconsistent; for instance, the counter-argument regarding low-income housing is introduced but lacks depth, and the conclusion introduces a new, slightly contradictory point about 'five or six story' buildings, which contradicts the premise of 'tall' apartment blocks. While the main ideas are clear, they could be extended with more specific evidence or logical reasoning to reach a higher band.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, each with a clear focus. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'First and foremost', 'On the Other hand', and 'By contrast', which help guide the reader. However, the use of these devices is sometimes mechanical, and there are instances where the flow between sentences feels slightly disjointed. Referencing is generally clear, but the transition between the discussion of infrastructure and the issue of affordability in the third paragraph could be smoother to improve the overall progression of ideas.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary is adequate for the task, allowing the writer to express their ideas clearly. There are attempts to use topic-specific vocabulary like 'deforestation', 'inclusivity', and 'sustainable approach'. However, there are several spelling errors ('consructing', 'tokyo', 'singapore', 'hopital', 'peoples', 'greenry', 'appartments', 'appropiate') and some awkward collocations ('dense population of cities', 'much hard'). These errors are noticeable but do not prevent the reader from understanding the intended meaning.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with subject-verb agreement ('Many people argues', 'tall apartments... provides') and article usage ('the infrastructure', 'the housing issue'). Punctuation is also inconsistent, with some missing commas and capitalization errors. While the meaning is generally conveyed, the frequency of these errors indicates a lack of control over more complex structures, keeping the score in the mid-range.

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

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