Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-30

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 most effective way to provide sufficient homes for all the people coming in search of jobs, or students or any new person coming to major cities is to build tall apartments. In my opinion, I agree that constructing apartment blocks is a key to providing more number of shelters. However, I also believe that, this solution is applicable to the temporary recidents only.

To begin with, growing population, number of job opportunities and the educational facilities in big cities results in a dramatic shift of people from their native village to major city hubs. Hence, tall apartments are the best way to save space as well as provide more flats, making the city standard go even more high. Renting flats or rooms in a apartment is a best idea for the people with these situations, who comes for a temporary purpose in the particular city. In that way, he/she can have comfortable shelter in and around the city making his/her daily life easy.

On the other hand, for the native city people living there right from their childhood cant adapt to this method. For instance, my friend with Chennai as his native, has bought a 2-BHK house 20km away from the city centre. This is because they don't have a place to go for holidays other than Chennai, unlike other people who travel to their native places for a change of environment as well as mind.

To summarise, constructing apartments are important to save place and provide more number of shelters for all the non-natives, but the native people should focus on their peace and comfort while choosing their home.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The candidate addresses all parts of the task and presents a clear position throughout the response, arguing that tall apartments are effective mainly for temporary residents rather than permanent locals. However, the development of ideas lacks depth in places. For instance, the distinction between temporary workers and native residents is introduced, but the example provided about the friend living 20km away in Chennai is somewhat underdeveloped and tangential to the core debate about housing supply in large cities. While the prompt is addressed, the arguments tend to over-generalise and could be extended further with more robust supporting examples. Consequently, the response aligns best with a Band 6.0 performance, where relevant ideas are presented but remain partially under-developed.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The text presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a concluding summary. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different arguments, such as the benefits of tall apartments versus the perspective of native residents. Cohesive devices are employed, including transition markers like 'To begin with', 'However', 'On the other hand', and 'To summarise'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical. For example, the phrase 'for the people with these situations, who comes for a temporary purpose' contains awkward pronoun referencing ('he/she'), and some links feel repetitive or slightly unnatural. These flaws prevent the response from reaching a higher band, placing it solidly at Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully communicating ideas about urban migration and housing. There are attempts to incorporate less common lexical items, such as 'dramatic shift', 'urban hubs', and 'temporary recidents'. However, there are notable word choice and spelling inaccuracies, such as 'recidents' instead of 'residents', 'cant' without an apostrophe, and unnatural collocations like 'making the city standard go even more high'. Furthermore, some phrasing is repetitive, such as 'provide more number of shelters'. Because these lexical errors do not seriously impede communication, the vocabulary profile corresponds to a Band 6.0 descriptor.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The essay demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, with attempts at relative clauses and conditional structures. However, grammatical errors and punctuation issues are frequent throughout the response. Examples include subject-verb agreement errors like 'growing population... results' (should be result), pronoun mismatch such as 'for the people... who comes' (should be come), and missing apostrophes in contractions like 'cant'. Additionally, some sentence structures become convoluted, such as 'Renting flats or rooms in a apartment is a best idea for the people with these situations, who comes for a temporary purpose'. While communication is rarely impeded, the frequency of errors places this response at Band 5.5.

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

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