Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-22
IELTS Writing Task 2 question
Nowadays, a growing number of people with health problems are trying alternative medicines and treatments instead of visiting their usual doctor.
Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Student answer (Band 4.5)
In today's world, numerous people suffering with health problems and using alternative treatments instead of visiting any professional doctor. In my opinion, its a negative development because alternative medicines are very risky and unproven.
On the one hand,a large number of people believe that they have not any serious issues and why they going to a doctor. They go to a any small clinic and taking medicine, such as, herbal medicine or homeopathy clinics and taking medicines for their problem. Therfore they did not know how these medicine effect of their body and become a serious disesases. For example, if a a person who has a dibates and take a herbe medicine instead of insulie or any recomending doctor medicine and his condition become critical. and at the end he did not recover fastly. The alternative medicines and treatments has not scientific research. These medicine or treatment are causes side effects and worse disease.
Another hand, the main reason is people are going to a homepathic clinic that because their medicines are not are much expensive and they afford it easily. However, they prefer to alternative treatments and medicines.The private hospitals docotor fees and medicine are in high rates and many of people have not affords these medicine because of their financial issues. But the alternative treatments has a negative impect on their healths and beacome a serious problems or diseases and people have going to be a critical condition. In my persepective that was the risky and Government should take a action and close these types of clinics and they also should pe provide a free treatments in the government hospitals and give them all facilites amnd professionals doctors.Because all people afford the treatment and did not go to the alternative medicines.
In conclusion, may alternative medicines are attract to peiple because of low cast but its a negative development also effect the health. I believe that was so worse of the people and its very risky.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 4.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 4.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 4.0 |
| Overall | 4.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0
The response addresses the prompt by clearly taking a negative position on the trend of using alternative medicines. The writer attempts to provide reasons, such as financial constraints driving people to homeopathic clinics and the perceived dangers of unproven remedies, supported by an example about diabetes. However, the development of ideas is limited and repetitive, and some arguments are poorly articulated due to language barriers. The position is clear throughout, but the depth of explanation aligns closely with the Band 5 descriptors where ideas remain somewhat under-developed.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 4.5
The essay is divided into logical paragraph blocks with an introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. However, the overall progression is heavily hindered by mechanical and faulty cohesive devices. Phrases like 'On the one hand' and 'Another hand' are used incorrectly or awkwardly, and referencing is frequently unclear, such as pronouns lacking distinct antecedents. Paragraphing is attempted, but the internal logical transitions within paragraphs make the overall structure difficult to follow at times, positioning this performance firmly within the Band 4 to Band 5 range.
Lexical Resource — Band 4.0
The vocabulary used is basic and repetitive, frequently revolving around simple terms like 'medicine', 'health', 'problems', and 'diseases'. There are noticeable word-choice errors and awkward collocations throughout the text, such as 'professional doctor' instead of 'general practitioner', and 'fastly' instead of 'quickly'. Frequent spelling errors are also present, including 'Therfore', 'disesases', 'dibates', 'herbe', 'insulie', 'recomending', 'homepathic', 'docotor', 'impect', 'beacome', 'persepective', 'peiple', and 'cast'. These errors occasionally cause difficulty for the reader, matching the Band 4 descriptors.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.0
The essay displays a very limited range of grammatical structures. The majority of complex sentences attempted are structurally faulty and fail due to severe grammatical inaccuracies, missing verbs, and incorrect tense usage, such as in 'numerous people suffering with health problems and using alternative treatments instead of visiting any professional doctor.' Simple sentences also contain fundamental errors, including subject-verb agreement issues and incorrect prepositions. Errors are frequent and often distort meaning, creating significant strain for the reader throughout the text.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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