Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-06

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 5.5)

In this modern era, in some parts of the world, people buy far too many clothes that are even sometimes not required. This essay will discuss the reasons behind this scenario and will propose some solutions to pursuade people to reduce the number of clothes they buy.

To begin with the reasons, first and foremost is appealing advertisements. many people in the society tend to purchase clothes by watching appealing advertisements on social media platforms, television, newspaper etcetra. Instead of repeating clothes, they buy new ones for every events. Moreover, convinience is another major reason for reckless buying behaviour. As each and everything is available online, many people especially young females are lean towards buying dresses from online shopping applications, for instace, Amazon, Flipcart, Meesho are some popular platforms in India.

Fortunately, this problem can be solved by making people aware of the rational purchases and importance of money. They can reduce their buying habits by realizing the value of money to be spent and for this, the governemnt should take an initiative to arrange an educational campaign and providing statistics of countries where people lives below the poverty line and lives their lives miserably. Apart from this, they can be convinced to spent money on rental clothes instead of buying, as they prefer to wear for one time only. Shopping malls can provide rental clothes for every festive ocassions.

Taking everything into consideration, although the majority of people are increasingly buy far too many clothes because of appealing advertisements and convincence, this issue can be resolved by adopting the suggested solutions efficiently.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

Please note that the response contains 243 words, which falls slightly short of the minimum 250-word requirement. Regarding task completion, you have addressed both parts of the prompt by identifying reasons such as appealing advertisements and online shopping convenience, and proposing solutions like educational campaigns and rental clothing. However, the length requirement is NOT met, and 20 words copied directly from the task prompt were excluded from the count. Furthermore, your ideas are somewhat limited and under-developed. For example, while you mention online shopping platforms like Amazon and Flipkart, you do not fully explain how they directly drive excessive purchasing beyond merely stating that young females lean towards buying dresses there. Expanding on these mechanisms with deeper explanation would help elevate your score.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

Your essay has a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion, showing that you can structure an essay adequately. You use basic cohesive devices to connect your thoughts, such as 'To begin with the reasons', 'Moreover', and 'Apart from this'. However, the progression of ideas is sometimes mechanical rather than completely smooth, and referencing is occasionally faulty. For instance, in the sentence 'They can reduce their buying habits by realizing the value of money to be spent and for this, the governemnt should take an initiative...', the pronoun referencing becomes slightly confusing because 'They' initially refers to the consumers, but the link feels a bit disjointed. To achieve a higher band, you need to ensure that cohesive devices are used more flexibly and that transitions between sentences and paragraphs flow naturally without feeling rigid or repetitive.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items and specific terms such as 'reckless buying behaviour', 'poverty line', and 'educational campaign'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors that reflect a limited and minimally adequate range. For instance, you misspelled 'etcetra' (etc.), 'convinience' (convenience), 'for instace' (instance), 'Flipcart' (Flipkart), 'governemnt' (government), 'ocassions' (occasions), and 'increasingly buy' (increasingly buying). Additionally, phrases like 'every events' (should be plural or singular depending on structure, e.g., 'every event') and 'lives below the poverty line and lives their lives miserably' show awkward collocations and word forms. These slips do not entirely impede communication, but they restrict your score because they cause some difficulty for the reader and show a lack of precision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You display a limited range of sentence structures, relying primarily on simple sentences mixed with a few attempts at complex forms. Your writing contains frequent errors in grammar, punctuation, and word patterns that can cause difficulty for the reader. For example, you wrote 'many people in the society tend to purchase clothes by watching' (where 'in the society' should simply be 'in society' and the preposition 'by watching' is awkward in this context). Other structural errors include 'many people especially young females are lean towards buying' (mixing 'are' with 'lean'), 'an initiative to arrange an educational campaign and providing statistics' (faulty parallelism between 'to arrange' and 'providing'), and 'as they prefer to wear for one time only' (missing object pronoun). To improve, you need to expand your repertoire of complex structures while tightening your control over basic agreements, verb forms, and prepositional usage.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.