Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-14

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)

Building tall apartments in big cities help provide home to many families. I agree with this statement because large cities lacks enough space for each individual to have their own house. Dense population and sustainable urbanization is a serious problem in these type of cities so making tall buildings that accommodates thousands of family is a great alternative.

Large cities are often considered to have multiple opportunities for people. People migrate to these places for better education, health services and jobs because of which bigger cities are highly populated. Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, have highest population in the country. Every year almost 20% of students enter Kathmandu to seek further studies while, only 5% leaves the city after graduation. Currently, these people live in PGs and rented home. Due to this growing demand, more houses are built in the city resulting in unmanaged and unurbanized housing taking a lot of unnecessary space. This will ultimately impact the cities' overall growth in the future.

The solution is simple. The government should encourage the builders and construction companies to prioritize more on making tall building. The main advantage is that, these buildings, even if many in numbers, occupy very little area, and also has a potential to provide homes for thousands. With tall apartment blocks in separate residential area in a city, the city can focus more on making commercial buildings and complexes that will generate many employment and drives the immigration since providing homes will no longer be a problem.

In conclusion, even though personal houses provide a level of satisfaction to the people but it should be highly discouraged and people should be encouraged to live in apartments since it is much economic, sustainable and support the urbanization of a city.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task and presents a clear position throughout in agreement with the statement. The introduction clearly states the writer's stance that tall apartment blocks are necessary due to space constraints in large cities. Ideas are generally extended and supported, such as the relevant example provided about Kathmandu, Nepal, illustrating rural-urban migration and housing pressures. However, some arguments, such as the exact mechanisms of commercial building development in the third paragraph, remain slightly under-developed. Nevertheless, the main tenets of the prompt are fully covered, leading to a Band 6.5 or 7.0 profile; given the clear position and relevant examples, a score of 6.5 is well-supported by the descriptors.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is coherent overall with a clear logical arrangement moving from introduction to problem analysis, proposed solutions, and a concluding stance. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct points, such as the specific case study of Kathmandu in the second paragraph. However, cohesion sometimes feels mechanical or faulty. For instance, transitional phrases like 'because of which' or 'while, only 5% leaves' detract slightly from fluency. Furthermore, referencing is occasionally unclear, as seen in the phrase 'these people live in PGs and rented home'. Despite these minor cohesion issues, the progression of ideas is discernible throughout, aligning well with the Band 6 descriptor.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully incorporating terms such as 'sustainable urbanization', 'dense population', and 'residential area'. There are, however, several word-choice, collocation, and grammatical form errors, such as 'cities lacks' instead of 'cities lack', 'making tall building' instead of 'building tall buildings', and 'much economic' instead of 'much more economical'. Spelling is generally accurate, but some phrasing is unnatural or imprecise. The vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey the intended meaning, allowing it to meet the requirements for Band 6.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response features a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating attempts at subordination and relative clauses (e.g., 'The main advantage is that, these buildings... occupy very little area, and also has a potential...'). However, there are noticeable grammatical errors throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('Building tall apartments... help', 'Kathmandu... have highest population'), singular/plural mismatches ('rented home'), and incorrect verb forms ('drives the immigration'). While these errors occasionally cause the reader to pause, they do not impede overall communication. The presence of these frequent errors alongside a basic mix of structures fits the Band 6 descriptor.

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