Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-16

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 appropriate way to provide sufficient residents in big cities is to constructed tall apartments blocks. I strongly agree with this view, it helps to ajust larger number of people in a small space, and also safe cost of the individuals.

Firstly, nowadays big cities are very populated and congested, more people shifted to large cities for better opportunities and for better living facilities. For example, In China, younger people and students moves to different cities for jobs and higher eduacation, so cities does not have enough space to provide separate homes for everyone because most of the areas where basic facilities are avaliable already congested. Thus, they built large building blocks to provide residents large number of individuals in a small space.

Secondly, in big cities private residents are too much expensive and those that are affordable are far away from their working sites, it increase the burdens of transport expenses, building an appartment block save money in different ways. For instance, build large apartments have cheaper rents, good security facilities, and save transport expenditure. When individuals living in large appartment blocks, the cost of security, building maintaince are distributed in all residents, This help people to save money and utilize a small space effieciently. Hence, people feel less stress and comfortable living in a big apartments.

In conclusion, although separate residents provide more privacy and independence, I strongly belive that provide enough home in large cities to construct tall building apartment blocks is the best approach, it helps to utilize small space efficiently, and also save money, transport expenditure and living cost.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt directly, presenting a clear position that supports the construction of tall apartment blocks to solve housing shortages in large cities. The writer gives relevant reasons and examples, such as mentioning China and the migration of students and young workers to urban areas. However, some ideas lack deep extension and tend to over-generalise. For example, while the economic benefits of shared maintenance costs are mentioned, they are not fully elaborated with specific data or robust development. Furthermore, there are minor lexical inaccuracies in the prompt's premise, such as using 'residents' instead of 'residences'. Despite these limitations, the main parts of the task are adequately addressed throughout the essay, maintaining a clear and consistent viewpoint from the introduction to the conclusion.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay displays a generally coherent overall arrangement with a clear organisational structure consisting of an introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct points regarding space efficiency and financial savings. Cohesive devices are employed to signal transitions, such as 'Firstly', 'Secondly', and 'In conclusion'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical. For instance, the transition between clauses often relies on comma splices rather than proper conjunctions, as seen in 'I strongly agree with this view, it helps to ajust...'. Additionally, pronoun referencing can be slightly ambiguous, which interrupts the smooth logical progression of ideas.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'congested', 'expenditure', and 'efficiently'. However, there are frequent word-choice and spelling errors that detract from the precision of the writing. Examples include 'constructed' instead of 'construct', 'ajust' instead of 'adjust', 'avaliable' instead of 'available', 'appartment' instead of 'apartment', and 'maintaince' instead of 'maintenance'. Some phrases are also unnatural, such as 'provide sufficient residents'. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they reflect a limited control over word formation and spelling, keeping the score firmly in the lower-intermediate range.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating relative clauses and conditional ideas. However, grammatical accuracy is weak, featuring frequent errors that cause difficulty for the reader. There are numerous run-on sentences and comma splices, such as 'I strongly agree with this view, it helps to ajust larger number of people...' and 'When individuals living in large appartment blocks, the cost...'. Subject-verb agreement and tense consistency also present issues, as seen in 'cities does not have' and 'younger people and students moves'. Simple structures tend to be more accurate, but attempts at complex structures are frequently faulty, leading to persistent punctuation and grammar issues.

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