Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 13 · 2026-08-15

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Living in a country where you have to speak a foreign language can cause serious social problems, as well as practical problems.

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)

Our life is full of challenges and living in country where you have to speak a foreign language is definitely one of those challenges that most of people will have to face it someday so let's take a look in those challenges that you might face there

Let's start with the biggest challenge there which is the language gap imagine yourself in the first day in that country walking on the street and you can't even read the name of the stores or even the bus station guide map everyone is talking but you can't understand a single word and your always using google translator even in daily social interactions and by the end of the day you will realize that if you want to survive you will have to learn a full new language from scratch what a rough day thankfully I didn't live that day yet but I know a bunch of people who had to go through it for example my brother who went to study abroad in Malaysia he had to learn a new language go through multiple cultural shocks and get adapt to a whole new environment

Now let's take a look about the bright side of the window after a while you will learn the language not just that you will also get used the traditions that you once found weird or strange and you will have the chance to see the beauty in differences and you will carry with you a bunch of stories and experience that will benefit you in the future

answering to your question I find myself in the middle everything is hard at the start but the more you continue in that road it will get easier and easier and the problems that use to worry you will slowly fade away

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt by discussing both the challenges and the potential benefits of living in a foreign-language environment. However, the position is somewhat underdeveloped. While you mention that you are 'in the middle,' the essay lacks a clear, formal structure to support this stance. The ideas are relevant, but the development is quite informal and relies heavily on personal anecdotes rather than broader, more analytical arguments. To improve, ensure you clearly state your position in the introduction and provide more balanced, academic reasoning for both sides of the argument rather than relying on a narrative style.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is divided into paragraphs, which helps with readability, but the internal structure is weak. There is a lack of formal cohesive devices (e.g., 'furthermore,' 'consequently,' 'on the other hand'). The flow between sentences is often abrupt, and the reliance on informal phrases like 'let's take a look' makes the progression feel conversational rather than academic. Referencing is sometimes unclear, and the transition between the challenges and the 'bright side' is abrupt. Using a wider range of linking words would significantly improve the logical flow of your arguments.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task but remains quite basic and repetitive. You use phrases like 'a bunch of' and 'a full new language,' which are informal. There are also some collocation errors, such as 'get adapt to' (should be 'adapt to' or 'get adapted to') and 'take a look about' (should be 'take a look at'). To reach a higher band, you should aim to incorporate more precise, topic-specific vocabulary related to migration, cultural integration, and linguistic challenges, while avoiding colloquialisms.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay suffers from significant punctuation issues, specifically the lack of full stops, which results in several long, run-on sentences. For example, the entire first paragraph is one long sentence. There are also frequent grammatical errors, such as 'living in country' (missing article), 'most of people' (should be 'most people'), and 'I didn't live that day yet' (incorrect tense; should be 'I haven't experienced that yet'). While the meaning is generally clear, the lack of sentence variety and the high frequency of basic grammatical errors limit the score.

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.