Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-16

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)

Increasing population leads to house crisis, and many of the large cities are tackling with this issue. Some people believe the best way to overcome this problem is to build tall apartment blocks to accquire more people, whereas some believe it should not be the case and I belong from one of them. I strongly condemn with the statement that the best way to provide enough homes in large cities is to build tall apartments.

There are many disadvantages of having tall apartments, and one of the major disadavantage is the increased risk of natural disaster, particulary earthquakes. If there is a high rise building the chances that it will survive in a major earthquake is comparatively low than a small short house, for instance, if a person lives in the upper floor of the building having 50 levels, the chances of survival for this person is really low as it takes a lot of time and efforts to come down. Moreover, in case of fire, it would be more harder to survive, as there is now way out. Either the perosn has to jump from his balcony or has to wait untill the help comes, which which may leads several injuries. However, if a person lives in a small house it is easier to get themselves out in these situations.

The second main demerit of having large building is loss of habitat. Due to high rise buildings, birds have less space to fly on. Basically we are using their space for our needs, which is also a major issue in lossing our biodiversity. Additionally, in flats we can not change the structie , once its comleted we can not change ots overll structure. wheras, in a house we can do this. for exmaple, if soeone wants to renvate their flat , it distunrbs othe rpiel who live updatrs and downstaris , and might be it woul not be possible at all to change the main layout of the home.

In conclusion, i belive that these high rise tall building are not the best solutions for human being as well as for other living creatures. Instead of this, accquiring more area in outerskirts with small and peacefull homes owuld be abetter way to deal with this problem,

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

Your position is clear: you disagree that tall apartment blocks are the best solution, and the conclusion proposes smaller homes on the outskirts instead. You develop two relevant reasons—risks during earthquakes or fires, and effects on wildlife—and give examples to explain them. This addresses the task, but the support is uneven. The disaster paragraph explains evacuation difficulties, while the biodiversity point is asserted more briefly, and the discussion of changing a flat’s layout is not clearly connected to whether high-rise construction provides enough homes. To strengthen the response, explain how your alternative could accommodate a large urban population and compare its practical advantages with apartment blocks. The response also needs to acknowledge the housing-capacity trade-off more directly. (Fourteen words copied from the task prompt were not counted.)

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay has a recognisable overall structure: an introduction states your view, two body paragraphs present reasons, and a conclusion restates your position. Sequencing phrases such as “Moreover,” “The second main demerit,” and “In conclusion” help readers follow the main stages. However, some connections are mechanical or unclear. The shift from wildlife habitat to the difficulty of renovating flats introduces a separate point without explaining how it supports the paragraph’s main claim. In the fire example, “Either…” and “However…” do not make the contrast especially smooth, and the conclusion’s alternative is introduced abruptly. Use clearer topic sentences and link each example explicitly to its central argument; also make pronoun references and sentence boundaries easier to follow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You attempt topic-relevant vocabulary, including “natural disaster,” “high rise building,” “loss of habitat,” and “biodiversity,” and these choices help communicate your main concerns. However, the range and control are limited by repeated general wording such as “issue,” “problem,” and “major,” as well as inaccurate collocations: “acquire more people” does not express providing housing, and “condemn with the statement” is not a natural way to state disagreement. Numerous spelling errors—including “disadavantage,” “perosn,” and “comleted”—also make the writing less fluent to read. Build a more precise set of housing and urban-planning terms, and check spelling and word forms carefully. More accurate collocations would make your arguments sound clearer and more natural.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You use a mixture of simple and complex forms, including conditional clauses such as “if a person lives in the upper floor” and a contrast introduced by “whereas.” This gives you some variety, and the overall meaning is usually recoverable. However, there are some errors in sentence structure and grammatical control. For example, “the chances … is” has subject–verb disagreement, while “it would be more harder” uses an incorrect comparative form. The sentence beginning “Either the person has to jump…” is awkwardly constructed, and the final paragraph contains a long sentence with unclear punctuation and clause boundaries. Practise checking agreement, articles, comparatives, and sentence boundaries, while retaining complex structures only when you can control them accurately.

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