Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 13 · 2026-09-20

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)

Living in a country where people speak foreign language can create both social and practical difficulties. I largely agree with this statement because language barrier make it hard for immigrants to communicate with other, access essentail services and become fully invoved in a local community. However,these obstacles can be reduced considerably by learning local language.

One major social problem is that people who cannot speak local language may struggle to built relationship, interaction with neighbours and participating in community activities. As a result, immigrant feel isolation or exclude from society. For exapmle, a person who move to new country where he cannot understand the language may aviod social gathering from fear of making mistakes and unable to express opinion. over the time, this can lead to loneliness and a lack of confidence.

Secondly, there are several practical issues caused by language barrier. Everyday task such as visiting to doctor, communication into government offices, understanding contracts, dealing with banks or while buying groceries may be stressful. For instance, when immiogrant visit to doctor and he cannot understand the instruction may take medicine incorrectly. Moreover, people face complication to find better job or opportunuities as many jobs require employees to communicate effectively with collegues and customers.

Neverthless, these hurdles are not necessarily permanent. People can overcome language barrier by attending language classess, practice with native speakers and by using language on daily basis in every situation.

In addition, modern translation app can help to do practice without spend of money. Therefore, severity of these difficulties depends how quickly individuals adapt to their new linguistic environment.

In conclusion, i agree living in a country where foreign language is spoken can cause serious social and practical issues, particularly during the initial period of settlement. However,these problems can be substantially reduced through learning language, regular communication and support from local community.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by presenting a clear position on whether living in a country with a foreign language causes social and practical problems. The writer largely agrees and supports this with relevant arguments regarding isolation, access to essential services, and career complications. For example, the mention of an immigrant visiting a doctor and misunderstanding instructions effectively illustrates practical difficulties. Ideas are generally well-extended, such as the discussion on how people can overcome these hurdles through language classes and translation apps. However, some ideas remain slightly repetitive or under-developed, preventing it from reaching a higher band. Overall, the prompt is successfully answered with a clear stance and coherent development of main ideas.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays a clear overall organization with a logical progression of ideas from social problems to practical issues, followed by solutions and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately, with distinct sections for introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Cohesive devices such as 'One major social problem', 'Secondly', and 'In conclusion' are employed to guide the reader through the text. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes mechanical or faulty, as seen in missing articles and occasional awkward transitions like 'visiting to doctor, communication into government offices'. Paragraph boundaries are respected, but the flow between sentences could be smoother with more varied cohesive links.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully incorporating topic-specific terms such as 'immigrants', 'linguistic environment', and 'opportunities'. There are successful attempts to use less common vocabulary, but these are often accompanied by inaccuracies in word choice or collocation, such as 'built relationship' instead of 'build relationships', 'avoid social gathering', and 'spend of money'. Spelling is generally acceptable, though there are occasional slips like 'essentail', 'invoved', 'exapmle', and 'immiogrant'. While communication is not impeded, the frequent lexical errors prevent the response from achieving a higher band score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional-like structures, as demonstrated in 'a person who move to new country where he cannot understand the language may aviod social gathering'. However, there are frequent grammatical errors, particularly involving subject-verb agreement, missing articles ('speak foreign language', 'visit to doctor'), and incorrect verb forms ('unable to express opinion', 'depends how quickly'). Although these errors do not severely impede communication, they occur regularly throughout the text. Complex structures are often faulty, placing the grammar firmly in the Band 5 category.

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

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