Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-08-19

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)

Currently, mankind is facing many obstacles across the world, and one of the major challenge is over population in urban areas, and great manner to settle and give enough residence to public in large cities is to construct tall buildings. I am totally agree with this thought, and in this essay, I will give valuable reasons to support my point.

Firstly, we can construct tall building in the space of few homes, and tall building has enough apartments to give abode to many people. For instance, In five houses, only few families can live their, but if we construct buildings instead of houses in urban regions, we have more space for many individuals and their families to live in their separate apartments, where they all the basic things require to spend peacefully life. We can easily manage the population of larger cities by following this method.

Moreover, by creating larger buildings in place of houses, we have more space for remaining infrastructure like, roads, educational institutes, healthcare departments and for super markets. For example, when we build our metropolitan cities according to strategy, we can facilitate citizens in better way. So this is the efficient method to accommodate more people at one place, rather than using whole area of town. Furthermore, we can reduce the expenses of construction and electricity. Because we can fulfil these basic needs of public at one place.

To conclude that, if we want to run our larger cities smoothly, then we have to take necessary actions like, to construct taller buildings to accommodate more people at one site. In this way we can utilize remaining space in other development of cities. And from my perspective, this is absolute right path.

AI examiner evaluation

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

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt and maintains a clear position throughout. The main ideas—space efficiency and infrastructure benefits—are relevant and supported with examples. However, the development is somewhat repetitive and lacks depth. For instance, the argument regarding infrastructure is mentioned but not fully explored in terms of how tall buildings specifically facilitate better urban planning. The ideas are generally clear, but the essay would benefit from more sophisticated reasoning or counter-arguments to reach a higher band. The position is consistent, but the overall development remains at a basic level of explanation.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, each with a clear central topic. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'Firstly', 'Moreover', and 'To conclude', which help guide the reader. However, some transitions feel mechanical or slightly awkward, such as 'To conclude that' (which is grammatically incorrect). Referencing is sometimes unclear, for example, 'by following this method' or 'according to strategy', which could be more precisely linked to the preceding points. While the progression of ideas is logical, the flow is occasionally interrupted by minor errors in sentence structure and linking phrases.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks variety and precision. The student relies on basic terms like 'big', 'many', and 'good', and there are several instances of awkward word choices or collocations, such as 'give abode to', 'peacefully life', and 'absolute right path'. While the meaning is generally clear, the range of vocabulary is limited, and the student struggles to use less common lexical items accurately. To improve, the student should focus on learning topic-specific collocations related to urban planning and housing, rather than relying on simple, repetitive phrasing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but accuracy is inconsistent. There are frequent grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement ('one of the major challenge'), article usage ('In five houses'), and awkward phrasing ('I am totally agree'). Punctuation is generally functional, but the sentence structure often feels simplistic. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to prevent the essay from reaching a higher band. A greater focus on proofreading for basic grammatical rules and varying sentence complexity would be beneficial.

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