Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-23

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 5.5)

Heath problems are increasing very rapidly nowadays, so individuals try to alternate the medicines and treatments rather than visiting their family doctors. I believe this is a positive development and my stance will be justified in the upcoming paragraphs.

Highlighting the brighter side, alternative medicines and treatment should be used so that people can cure their disease effectively. Sometimes one doctor or a particular treatment cannot cure illness so it is better to try alternative solutions. For instance, In india, when a person is not recovering even after taking a lots of medicines and doing multiple therapies, then he adapt natural treatment with no side effects. As a result, people can improve their health. Furthermore, some drugs and therapies are becoming advanced that can cure any disease in small period of time. There are technologies like surgical robots, automatic disease diagnosis and tumor detection can make treatment faster and reliable. Hence, people can identify their illness early.

Moreover, though family doctors suggest better medicines, they can take more charges from the patients even if it does not cost that much. Hence, it can affect their financial condition. With the help of social media, people can become more aware about the different therapy and medicine that can help them to take action whenever any diesease cause health problems.

To sum up, health problems can be solve by trying different medicines and therapies

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response addresses the prompt by discussing whether using alternative medicines instead of visiting a family doctor is a positive or negative development, taking a clear positive stance. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited and the word count requirement is not met, as the response contains only 231 words, falling short of the 250-word minimum. While the writer attempts to provide reasons such as curing illnesses effectively and avoiding high doctor fees, the arguments remain somewhat superficial and under-developed. For example, the point about technological advancements like surgical robots digresses slightly from traditional 'alternative medicines' into mainstream medical technology. Due to the under-length penalty and under-developed idea extension, the task response is constrained.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay displays a basic structural organization with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a brief conclusion. However, progression is somewhat impaired, and cohesive devices are occasionally mechanical or repetitive (e.g., 'Highlighting the brighter side', 'Furthermore', 'Moreover', 'To sum up'). Paragraphing is attempted, but the conclusion is extremely brief and consists of only one sentence which merely restates the prompt without properly synthesizing the main arguments. Referencing is sometimes unclear, such as pronoun usage in 'they can take more charges from the patients even if it does not cost that much'. Overall, the text demonstrates a coherent overall arrangement, but cohesion is faulty enough to warrant this score.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, with attempts at less common items such as 'alternative medicines', 'diagnosi', and 'financial condition'. However, there are noticeable word choice and collocation inaccuracies throughout the text. For instance, the opening sentence uses 'alternate the medicines' instead of 'use alternative medicines', and 'take more charges' instead of 'charge more'. There are also minor spelling and lexical errors, such as 'diesease' instead of 'disease'. While the vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey the writer's general message, errors in word choice and spelling prevent it from reaching a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response features a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but attempts at complex structures are frequently flawed. Examples include grammatical slips like 'individuals try to alternate the medicines' and 'when a person is not recovering even after taking a lots of medicines'. Punctuation and article usage also show frequent errors, such as missing articles ('In india', 'with no side effects') and subject-verb agreement issues ('health problems can be solve'). Although the meaning can generally be followed, the high frequency of grammatical and mechanical errors causes some difficulty for the reader and restricts the score to this level.

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