Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-18

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)

In the contemporary world, there is an ongoing debate that construction of colossal apartments would be the perfect method to provide homes in the big cities. I completely agree with this notion because can accomodate more number of people and safe for families.

The primary reason behind my agreement is that big apartments can ammodate more number of people while capturing the less proportion of area of land. By and large, big buildings have many number of flats on a single floor, therefore, construction of taller apartments would incourage to live many families. An Indian city, Noida, for instance, where authorities proposed to construct a planned city filled with tall apartments in order to provide houses for families. Hence, in major cities, housing the more number of people would be possible by building big apratments.

Safety is an another positive side of living in an apartment. People living in flats of apartments establish a society. The role of the society to hire a security team and maintainance of the society, which eventually provide a safer environment to households. The security guards, for instance, keep the eye on visitors, record their details and ask the residents allowing them to enter, it may prevent robbery in posh areas. Therefore, families living in the prominent cities may feel safe by living in apartments.

In conclusion, I believe that the construction of taller buildings can be the best possible way to house the large proportion of the population in big cities as it can provide homes to many families and keep their surrounding safe.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt directly by taking a clear and consistent position in agreement with the statement that building tall apartment blocks is the best way to provide enough homes in large cities. The writer presents relevant main ideas, such as maximizing land efficiency to house a greater number of people and enhancing safety through community infrastructure like security teams. However, the development of these ideas remains somewhat general and repetitive, relying on broad statements rather than deep elaboration. For instance, the example of Noida in India is briefly mentioned to illustrate planned vertical housing, but it is not fully expanded to explore the broader socio-economic impacts. Similarly, the discussion on safety outlines how guards monitor visitors, which supports the central argument well. Overall, the task is addressed appropriately, achieving a solid band 6.0 performance level.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs addressing distinct points, and a concluding summary. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate the main ideas of space-efficiency and safety. However, the management of cohesive devices and referencing is at times faulty and mechanical. For example, transitional phrases like 'By and large' and 'Hence' are deployed, but some sentences suffer from awkward cohesive links, such as 'The role of the society to hire a security team and maintainance of the society, which eventually provide...' which disrupts the natural flow. Pronoun referencing and conjunctions occasionally create clunky transitions between sentences, but the overarching progression of ideas remains discernible throughout.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'contemporary world', 'colossal apartments', and 'posh areas'. However, there are numerous lexical errors, spelling mistakes, and inappropriate word choices that hinder precision. Examples include 'accomodate' (misspelled), 'ammodate', 'incourage to live', 'maintainance', and 'apratments'. The phrase 'capturing the less proportion of area of land' is also unnatural. While the vocabulary is sufficient to communicate the main arguments, the frequency of spelling slips and minor collocation inaccuracies prevents the score from reaching a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some variety through relative clauses and conditional-like structures, as seen in sentences like 'People living in flats of apartments establish a society.' However, grammatical accuracy is weak, featuring frequent errors that detract from the writing. Notable issues include missing subjects or verbs (e.g., 'because can accomodate more number of people'), incorrect prepositions, and article misuse (e.g., 'the more number of people', 'is an another positive side'). While communication is rarely completely impeded, the high frequency of basic grammatical slips means that error-free sentences are in the minority, placing this firmly in the band 5.0 category.

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

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