Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-15

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)

With the modernization of the world and advances in medical field population and average age expectancy rose gardaully over the years.This creates a demand of more accomodations especially in big cities. Many metropolitan cities have created living space by constructing highrise buildings. This growing trend of building skyscrapers have many advantages and disadvantages. I believe it is a postive trend as it provide home to growing population.

On the one hand, building tall apartment blocks has many advantages. Tall buildings accomodate lot of people in vertical apartments with availability of all basic facilities in a small space. It also addresses the problem of rapid urbanization in modern world. Moreover, this approach has many enviromental benefits as it saves agricultral land and help to avoid deforestation.

On the other hand, skyscrapers and tall buidings cause overcrowding of people in big cities with more traffic on the roads. It also cteates the problem of water shortage. It is also a concern of safety in big cities as it is difficult to check everyone by authorities.

In conclusion, tall accomodations provide many advantages which outweigh the disadvantages. The government should keep a check and balance to avoid problems

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

Your position is identifiable: you support tall apartment blocks because they can house a growing urban population, and you acknowledge disadvantages. The points about using less land and avoiding deforestation are relevant, but they are asserted rather than explained or illustrated. The opposing points—traffic, water shortages and safety—are also listed without showing how they arise or how they affect whether high-rise construction is the best solution. The response therefore addresses the question only partially, and the conclusion does not resolve these trade-offs beyond saying the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. The response is also below the required 250 words. Develop fewer points with explanations or examples, and make your extent of agreement explicit throughout.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a clear overall arrangement: an introduction, separate paragraphs for advantages and disadvantages, and a conclusion. Signposts such as “On the one hand,” “On the other hand,” and “In conclusion” help readers follow the basic structure. However, progression within the paragraphs is limited because ideas are mostly presented as a list, with little explanation linking them to the central question. The reference in “It also addresses the problem” is somewhat vague, and the final sentence introduces government oversight without connecting it to the earlier discussion. To strengthen cohesion, explain each point in sequence and use clearer references to the specific benefit or problem being discussed.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant topic vocabulary, including “metropolitan cities,” “urbanization,” “deforestation,” and “overcrowding,” which helps communicate the subject. There are also attempts at more formal phrasing, such as “addresses the problem” and “environmental benefits.” However, spelling errors are noticeable, including “accomodations,” “gardaully,” “enviromental,” and “agricultral.” Some word combinations are also unnatural or imprecise: “average age expectancy” would be better expressed as “life expectancy,” while “provide home to growing population” needs more natural phrasing. Build accuracy by checking spelling and learning common collocations for housing and urban development; this will make your vocabulary more precise and fluent.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You use a mixture of simple statements and some longer structures, including “With the modernization of the world and advances in medical field…” and the contrast between the two body paragraphs. The main ideas are generally understandable, but some grammatical errors recur. For example, “This growing trend … have” has a subject–verb agreement problem, and “it provide home” should use a correctly inflected verb and article. Articles are also missing in phrases such as “in medical field” and “in small space.” The opening sentence needs clearer punctuation, including a space after the full stop. Practise checking agreement, articles and sentence boundaries, while continuing to use varied sentence forms.

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