Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 13 · 2026-09-17

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 5.0)

Living in a country where the language is not your native language can pouse unique challenges.

As human beings, we naturally seek a sense of belonging and integration.

Therefore, this become challeging when we face language barries. Besides, the problems could be more serious when you're at professional work. For example, healthcare professionals should be aware of patients' concerns and potential misunderstadings when communicating with them.

On the other hand, the challenge can became straightforward when you start studying or use misunderstadings to their advantage. In constract, social life could draw your emotions by language barries and make you feel overlooked or misunderstood to others. To illustrate, several immigrants felt bullying or pressured because of integrations.

Thus, the certain details about language barries becames severely impacted when someone's give importance to them, otherwise misunderstands could barely desapear with studying and commitment to understand the foreign language. Seeing others behaviours and culture made it easier. It can encourage people to learn and integrate the new society, while helping them overcome the challenges of learning a new language.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The student addresses the prompt by discussing both the social and practical problems of living in a foreign-language country, touching upon professional settings like healthcare and social challenges such as feeling overlooked. However, the response is severely limited by its length. At only 176 words, it falls well short of the 250-word minimum requirement for Task 2, meaning ideas are under-developed and lack sufficient extension or detailed supporting examples. Because of this significant under-length penalty, the task cannot be fully developed, capping the score at Band 4.0. To improve, the writer must ensure they meet the word count threshold and fully flesh out their arguments with concrete explanations and personal examples.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The text demonstrates some organisation through basic cohesive devices such as 'Therefore', 'Besides', and 'On the other hand'. However, the logical progression is frequently disrupted by unclear referencing and abrupt shifts in thought. For instance, the transition from professional healthcare examples to social life is jarring, and paragraphing is underdeveloped, with the entire text compressed into a few cramped blocks rather than distinct structural units. Referencing pronouns like 'their' and 'them' often lacks a clear antecedent, causing confusion for the reader. While the writer attempts to structure a balanced argument, the overall cohesion is mechanical and faulty, aligning closely with the Band 5 descriptors.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student uses a limited range of vocabulary with noticeable spelling and word-choice errors that occasionally cause difficulty for the reader. Spelling mistakes are frequent throughout the response, including words like 'pouse' instead of pose, 'challeging' for challenging, 'barries' for barriers, 'misunderstanding' misspelled as 'misunderstanding', 'constract' instead of contrast, and 'desapear' instead of disappear. Although the writer attempts some less common phrases like 'healthcare professionals' and 'integration', the lexical control is weak due to persistent inaccuracies and repetition of basic terms like 'language barriers'. This performance fits securely within the Band 5 range for lexical resource.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response features a mix of simple and attempted complex sentence structures, but control over grammar is weak. There are frequent grammatical errors, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('this become challeging', 'language barries becames severely impacted', 'someone's give importance') and awkward phrasing ('draw your emotions by language barries'). Punctuation is basic, and sentence boundaries are sometimes blurred by run-on structures. While some simple sentences are communicated clearly, the high frequency of grammatical inaccuracies in complex attempts impacts readability and pulls the grammar score down to a Band 5.0.

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.