Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-12
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)
The statement about providing enough homes in large cities to built tall apartment blocks is something i dont agree with. Yes I must say it is necessary to accomodate large groups of people in big cities like karachi, because majorly, the sources of employment is available in karachi. For-instance, massive amount of people wants to migrate to karachi to earn money, and to facilitate all of the people, apartment blocks can be the one convenient option. But in my opinion such tall apartment blocks also has some cons. The major disadavantage is the earthquake. I still remember the earthquake of october 2008, how it destroyed and ruined every building. Tall buildings were more severly damaged and lots of human lives were buried under those tall buildings. So, we should aware of the fact that incident of earthquake can be happen again. Yes, i also agree with the fact that it is beneficial for people who come from small cities to get settled in the bigger cities, as alot of people come with dreams to pursue to get better life. Small buildings could not be enough to provide accomodation for all the people, but we should work on it and get the best solution rather than building tall apartment blocks. Human lives are far more important than any other thing. We can manage it by building small flats by providing basic facilities for survival with only 1 bedroom, 1 small kitchen and washroom. In this way we can manage this problem.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 6.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0
The student addresses the prompt by taking a clear stance against building tall apartment blocks, providing reasons based on employment migration and safety concerns regarding earthquakes. The position is maintained throughout the response. However, the development of ideas tends to be repetitive and limited, particularly regarding the alternative solution of building smaller flats. While the main arguments are relevant and supported with an example from personal memory, the explanation lacks the depth and extension required for a higher band. Consequently, the response meets the criteria for Band 6, where all parts of the task are addressed, but some ideas are slightly under-developed.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
The response demonstrates a basic overall progression, starting with an introduction and statement of position, moving through arguments about migration and earthquakes, and concluding with an alternative proposal. However, the text suffers from a lack of proper paragraphing, as it is written as a single dense block of text, which negatively impacts the flow. While basic cohesive devices and referencing are used (such as 'For-instance', 'But', and 'In this way'), they are sometimes mechanical or repetitive. Paragraphing and cohesive control need to be handled much more skillfully to achieve a higher band score.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, such as 'accomodate', 'migration', 'employment', and 'convenient option'. There are, however, noticeable spelling errors ('accomodate', 'disadavantage', 'severly', 'alot') and occasional awkward word choices or collocations, such as 'incident of earthquake can be happen again'. Less common lexical items are attempted, but inaccuracies in spelling and word form occasionally occur. The vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey the writer's meaning, placing this submission firmly at Band 5.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as 'Yes I must say it is necessary to accomodate large groups of people in big cities like karachi, because majorly, the sources of employment is available in karachi.' However, control over grammar and punctuation is inconsistent. There are frequent punctuation errors, missing capitalisations (e.g., 'karachi'), subject-verb agreement issues ('sources of employment is', 'such tall apartment blocks also has'), and tense or modal verb errors ('can be happen'). These errors occasionally cause some difficulty for the reader, matching the description for Band 5.
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.