Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-19
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)
In big cities, tall apartment blocks are the best source to provide enough residential space. I agree with with this sentiment, because it not only allows to accomodate maximum families in less space but also saves space for health and educational purposes such as parks.
In present time, population size is increasing day by day and more number of families are migrating towards cities for better life style and facilities. Therefore, cities are becoming more populated than these could support. Hence, substantial space is required for their accomodation and building new houses for each family may cover huge area. As a result, tall apartment blocks can be used to provide enough homes.
By building tall apartment blocks more space can be used for construction of parks, hospitals and educational institutes.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 4.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0
The response clearly states a position that tall apartment blocks are the best way to provide enough residential space in big cities. The student supports this position with reasons such as accommodating more families and saving land for parks and hospitals. However, the response falls significantly short of the 250-word minimum, containing only 130 words. Consequently, the ideas are severely underdeveloped, preventing the writer from fully exploring the prompt. In accordance with the IELTS assessment guidelines, this major under-length issue heavily penalises the task achievement score, as the task has only been partially addressed due to the lack of necessary word count and elaboration.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
The text shows an attempt at logical organization with a clear introductory stance followed by supporting points. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'Therefore', 'Hence', and 'As a result', although some links feel slightly mechanical. The paragraphing is weak; the student combines the introduction and body arguments into overly dense blocks or fails to structure distinct paragraphs properly, with the final point awkwardly isolated in a one-sentence paragraph. While the overall progression of ideas is discernible, the lack of substantial development and flawed paragraph structure limit the coherence of the essay, pulling the score down into the lower-middle band.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for the task, successfully using terms like 'migration', 'residential space', and 'population size'. However, there are notable lexical errors and awkward collocations throughout the text. For instance, the phrase 'best source to provide' is unnatural, and spelling mistakes like 'accomodate' and 'accomodation' detract from the precision of the writing. Less common lexical items are attempted but lack accurate control. Because the vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey the basic meaning despite the errors, it fits the descriptor for band 5.0.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The response contains a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some variety in structure. For example, the student uses conditional and causal connectors like 'because it not only allows to accomodate...'. However, there are frequent grammatical errors, such as missing objects or incorrect verb complementation ('allows to accomodate' instead of 'allows for the accommodation of' or 'allows us to accommodate'), preposition errors ('migrating towards cities'), and article omissions ('for better life style'). While these errors do not completely obscure the meaning, their frequency noticeably disrupts the flow and places the grammar firmly at a band 5 level.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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