Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-17

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 5.0)

Multi story appartments blocks is the best way to provide enough homes in big cities. This essay disagrees that a tall appartments is the best way. Firstly, these are very inconvinient for older people; secondly, people cannot afford these appartments easily.

To begin with, these are not suitable for old age people because every tall appartments do not have all necessary facilities available. Furthermore, people need to cover a lot of staris to reach their own appartment. Lifts are also available however, multiple people are living in one tall building and it is difficult to use them. For example, there are multiple tall buildings available for appartments but due to power shortage and lack of maintenance, lifts remain stuck. People use stairs to go to the upper floors.

Moreover, these tall building are very expensive for ordinary people. Multiple tuck shops and accessories shops are available in it but there rate are double as compare to normal shops. For instance, Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world. Additionally, it is very expensive such that only rich people can afford the accomodation and other facilities. Middle class people even can not afford to visit it. Normal people only need basic facilities for their survival rather than these extra modern things. Electricity and gas cost is also very high in these appartments.

To conclude this, although tall appartment blocks have multiple benefits in big cities. I believe that these are only suitable for upper class people. Old age people do not prefer it because of shortage of facilities. In addition to this, inflamation is high these days therefore it is difficult to survive there for normal people.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The student attempts to address the prompt by disagreeing with the statement that tall apartment blocks are the best way to provide homes in large cities. A clear position is established in the introduction and maintained throughout the essay. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited and repetitive. For instance, the discussion on older people relies heavily on generalisations about stairs, lifts, and maintenance without deeper elaboration. Similarly, the economic argument introduces the Burj Khalifa, which is a luxury tourist and residential skyscraper rather than standard urban housing, showing a lack of realistic examples. The ideas are relevant but under-developed, placing this response at Band 5.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay displays basic organisational structure with an introduction, body paragraphs featuring transitional markers like 'Firstly', 'To begin with', and 'Moreover', and a conclusion. However, the overall progression is sometimes hindered by abrupt shifts and repetitive referencing. Paragraphing is attempted, but internal cohesion is often faulty or mechanical, such as the awkward transition into the example of the Burj Khalifa within the economic argument. Furthermore, referencing pronouns are occasionally unclear, as seen in the opening sentence where 'these' lacks a clear prior anchor. These limitations align closely with the Band 5 descriptor for Coherence and Cohesion.

Lexical Resource — Band 4.5

The student employs a limited but minimally adequate range of vocabulary suitable for discussing housing and cities, such as 'facilities', 'maintenance', and 'accommodation'. However, there are frequent spelling errors ('appartments', 'inconvinient', 'staris', 'inflamation' instead of inflation) and odd word choices ('there rate are double as compare', 'old age people'). The misuse of vocabulary and frequent spelling mistakes cause noticeable strain for the reader and prevent the score from reaching Band 6.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.5

The essay demonstrates a mix of simple and some attempted complex sentence structures, but control is weak. There are frequent grammatical errors, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('Multi story appartments blocks is', 'every tall appartments do not have'), incorrect prepositions, and awkward phrasing ('Middle class people even can not afford to visit it'). While the meaning can generally be deciphered, the high frequency of basic errors causes regular difficulty and prevents the writing from meeting the Band 5 threshold consistently across all sentences, earning a Band 4.5.

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

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