Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-14

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 6.0)

In large cities, the best strategy to build enough homes is building tall apartment blocks. I agree with this strategy as it is the only solution to provide homes for the rapidly increasing population of the cities.

The population of cities is increasing with a great speed. People move to a city for various reasons including work, education and an improved lifestyle. Meanwhile, the cities are becoming overpopulated making it difficult to provide shelter to every citizen. The land in the cities is very expensive which everyone cannot afford to purchase in order to build a home, which makes apartments an affordable option and some people can have them rented. It is also a way of doing a smart business by building a number of houses instead of a single large house. For exampe, Tokyo has become an overpopulated city with about 1 billion people living in it. So, the only way to provide homes to everyone is building tall blocks with large number of apartments.

In addition, it is better for saving our climate. For example, some people cut forests to add the land into the city to expand the space for the people. This results in climate change and also increases the air pollution. People should avoid cutting trees and forests for making homes and buildings. Instead they can make tall apartment blocks.

In conclusion, the only solution to overcome the shortage of space in cities is to build tall buildings. It can save space as well as plants or forests. Moreover, it can provide huge amounts of profits to the building owners which eventually contributes to the city's economy.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

Your position is clear from the opening: you agree that tall apartment blocks are the best way to provide homes, and the conclusion restates this view. You give relevant reasons, including limited and expensive urban land, population growth, and avoiding forest clearance. The Tokyo example also attempts to illustrate the pressure on housing. However, some points are asserted rather than fully explained: for instance, the claim that apartments are affordable and can be rented needs clarification, and the environmental argument would be stronger if you explained how higher-density housing reduces expansion into forests. The example of Tokyo is also not convincingly supported. Develop each reason with a clearer explanation or a reliable, specific example.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response has a clear overall structure: an introduction, two body paragraphs presenting reasons, and a conclusion. The progression from urban population and land costs to environmental effects is easy to follow, and linking phrases such as “In addition” and “In conclusion” help signal the stages of the argument. This meets the lower-band expectation of coherent organisation and shows some features of stronger progression. However, connections within paragraphs are sometimes mechanical, with several ideas joined by “and” or “which” rather than showing their precise relationship. The sentence about land being expensive, for example, combines affordability, renting, and home construction without a clear sequence. Use more varied transitions and make references between sentences explicit to improve flow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main argument, including “overpopulated,” “shelter,” “air pollution,” and “climate change.” There are also attempts at more specific phrasing, such as “rapidly increasing population” and “shortage of space.” However, the range is limited by repeated general words such as “build,” “homes,” and “people,” and some combinations are unnatural or imprecise, including “increasing with a great speed” and “add the land into the city.” The spelling error “exampe” also reduces accuracy. These choices do not prevent understanding, but more precise collocations and a wider range of housing and urban-planning terms would make the argument more fluent and exact.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, including subordinate clauses in “People move to a city for various reasons including work, education and an improved lifestyle” and “which makes apartments an affordable option.” Most ideas remain understandable, and the errors do not generally obstruct communication. Some sentence patterns, however, are awkward or incomplete in their construction. For example, “the best strategy … is building” and “the only way … is building” would be more natural with “is to build”; “which everyone cannot afford to purchase” has an unclear grammatical reference; and “with large number of apartments” needs an article. Aim for more controlled infinitive and relative-clause structures, and check articles and sentence boundaries when revising.

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

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