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)

It is often argued that the effective method to provide suffficient houses in metropolitan is to construct high risse buildings.while, some believe this is a positive trend. I completely agree with this notion because of rising population in cities anf afforability.

To begin with, the primary relason why i believe tall building are necessary is that many individuals are migrating from rural areas to cities for jobs and education.This is because major cities offers better employment and education infrastructure. For instance, Hyderababad which is also called IT hub, thousands of people arrive every year and need affordable housing near their officeareas.Therefore it is clear that tall building constructions can accommodate large number of people on limited land.

Furthermore,cost plays acrucial role. When land is expensive,it leads to unaffordable houses.A clear example of this is Hitech city, Hyderabad where a 20 floors apartment can house 200 families, while the sameland fits only 5 houses.Consequently, this reinforces the idea that high rise buildings are the best housing solution.

In conclusion, although some may argue otherwise, I firmly maintain that tall buildings are ideal because over population and cost saving.Looking forward,it is expected that more cities will adopt vertical housing.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.0
Coherence and Cohesion6.5
Lexical Resource5.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.5
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

Your position is clear: you completely agree that tall apartment buildings are an effective way to provide housing, and both population growth and land costs are relevant reasons. The examples of people moving to Hyderabad and the comparison between a 20-floor block and houses help connect your argument to the topic. However, the response addresses the task only partially because these points are asserted rather than sufficiently explained, and it does not consider any limitation or alternative to high-rise housing. The conclusion repeats the main reasons without adding much development. The response is also 53 words below the required minimum, which limits the space available to explain your ideas. Develop each reason with further explanation and a specific, relevant example.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response has a clear overall arrangement: an introduction, two body paragraphs presenting separate reasons, and a conclusion. The progression from population pressure to land costs is logical, and signposts such as “To begin with,” “Furthermore,” and “In conclusion” make the structure easy to follow. This meets the lower-band expectation of coherent organisation and shows some flexibility in linking ideas. However, several links are mechanical or awkward, including “This is because” and “Consequently, this reinforces the idea,” which repeat the relationship rather than develop it. Missing spaces after full stops also interrupt the flow visually. Use clearer referencing and connect each example explicitly to the claim it supports; this would make cohesion more natural and sustained.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant topic vocabulary, including “metropolitan,” “employment,” “affordable housing,” “limited land,” and “vertical housing,” and these choices communicate the main argument. There are also attempts at more specific language, such as “employment and education infrastructure.” However, the range is limited and several noticeable spelling or word-choice errors reduce precision: “suffficient,” “high risse,” “afforability,” and “over population.” Some combinations are also unnatural, such as “in metropolitan” and “a 20 floors apartment.” These issues do not prevent the reader from understanding your position, but they make the writing less fluent. Check spelling carefully and learn common collocations for housing and urban development, such as “in metropolitan areas” and “a 20-storey apartment block.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt a mix of simple and complex sentences, including a reason clause (“This is because…”) and a contrast clause (“although some may argue otherwise”). The main ideas are generally understandable, but errors occur frequently enough to make some sentences awkward. For example, “major cities offers” has a subject–verb agreement error, while “tall building are necessary” has a number-agreement problem. The opening sentence also has faulty punctuation and sentence boundaries, and “because over population and cost saving” is an incomplete construction. Improve control of agreement, articles, plurals, and sentence boundaries, and make sure each sentence has a complete grammatical structure. More accurate complex sentences would strengthen the response.

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