Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-05

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In some parts of the world, people buy far too many clothes.

What are the reasons for this?
How can people be persuaded to reduce the number of clothes they buy?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Student answer (Band 6.0)

Culture plays an important role to determine social lifestyle of the local community. Due to this, there is a growing debate with respect to number of clothes people buy in certain part of the world. This essay will examine both perspectives and explain how people can be persuaded to buy only required number of clothes.

Social pressure plays an important role. People tend to buy new clothes when the have an event. Desire for new clothes can be driven from current fashion trend or who else is going to the event. People by new clothes to elevate their social status and buy expensive branded clothes. This implies, if an event has thousand attendees, there would huge amount of people buying new clothes.

Culture differences is also a cause where people buy new clothes. For instance, in South Asian countries like India, people are required to buy separate clothes while they pray or new clothes when they have festivals and birthdays. There would be billions of new clothes bought every year due to this culture belief. Another reason is gender difference. Women tend to buy new clothes as they like to be in fashion.

Due to these reasons, there is enormous need of new clothes which impacts global warming. For new clothes, there is huge dependency on raw materials such as cotton or silk, passing through machines and eventually transport. If people are made aware of this carbon footprint, there maybe less demand to buy new clothes. Another way is to inculcate the trend of recycle clothes. Stores such as H&M provide discount to shoppers if they provide them with old clothes. They use this old clothes and turn into new set of clothes. This can help to reduce carbon footprint.

In conclusion, there is a need of awareness campaigns and if stores can find a way to recycle, it can persuade people to by less clothes which would help the environment. Additionally, cultural awareness and leaders can help spread this message. The goal is to persuade people only to buy clothes when needed.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses both parts of the prompt: reasons for excessive clothing consumption and methods for persuasion. The ideas are relevant, such as social pressure and cultural expectations. However, the development is somewhat uneven. For example, the explanation regarding 'gender difference' is underdeveloped and lacks sufficient detail. The introduction also contains a slight misunderstanding of the prompt, as it states the essay will examine 'both perspectives' (implying a discussion-style essay) rather than focusing on the specific reasons and solutions requested. Despite this, the main points are clear and the response remains focused on the topic throughout.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The essay is logically organized into paragraphs, each with a clear central theme. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'For instance,' 'Another reason,' and 'In conclusion,' which help guide the reader. However, some transitions are mechanical or slightly awkward, such as 'Due to this, there is a growing debate' and 'This implies, if an event has thousand attendees.' The referencing is generally clear, though the flow between sentences could be improved to sound more natural. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate the reasons from the solutions.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The vocabulary is adequate for the task, allowing the student to convey their ideas clearly. There is an attempt to use topic-specific language like 'carbon footprint' and 'raw materials.' However, there are several instances of word-choice errors and awkward phrasing, such as 'inculcate the trend of recycle clothes' (should be 'recycling') and 'there would huge amount of people' (missing 'be'). Some collocations are also slightly unnatural, such as 'culture differences is also a cause.' The range is sufficient to communicate, but lacks the precision and flexibility required for a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While the meaning is generally clear, there are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text. Examples include missing articles ('in thousand attendees'), subject-verb agreement issues ('Culture differences is'), and incorrect verb forms ('people by new clothes' instead of 'buy'). Punctuation is generally functional, but the frequency of these errors prevents the writing from reaching a higher band. The majority of sentences are understandable, but the control over complex structures is inconsistent.

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

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