Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-09-18
IELTS Writing Task 2 question
Some people claim that not enough of the waste from homes is recycled. They say that the only way to increase recycling is for governments to make it a legal requirement.
To what extent do you think laws are needed to make people recycle more of their waste?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Student answer (Band 5.0)
some people strongly belive that waste from homes are not recycled and in there opinion the only way to encourage people to surge the recyling would be by implimenting laws. In my opinions both are equally important and to support it examples will be discussed in upcoming paragrah along with my opinion.
To escalate with my opinion I strongly belive that it is equally important for both people and goverment to understand that its there responsibilitty to recyle waste to help to improve our envoirment on a safer side .To support my point I would like to state a example from ny own experinece that even if goverment implies laws for citizen to seprate there waste it will be easy to reclye the waste as earlier in or locality people does not take it as there own responsility to reclye waste but as our local municipal passes a law that is people do not segrigate there waste it will not be picked by municipal cooperation.with the help of secretary and municap people understand how to segrigate there waste in different bins .
furthermore by making laws it puts a unknown pressure ovwe people to follow even if they do not want to . Also educating people how to recyle waste is immensely important . in our state goverment has taken many powerful steps to surge the recyling among population like by putting diffrent colours of dusbins aorund city and writing over them like which waste goes into which bin .
To conclude in my opinions more then just implementing the law its more important to make people understands and educate them about why and how should they recyle thier waste which is produced not only in home but outside palces too.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The student addresses all parts of the task by discussing whether laws are needed to increase household recycling and presents a clear personal opinion. The position is maintained throughout the essay. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited and repetitive. For example, the student mentions that laws create pressure and provide education, but these points are not fully extended with sophisticated reasoning. There is a tendency to rely on general statements rather than deep exploration. Consequently, the response aligns best with Band 6, as it addresses the prompt adequately but the support remains somewhat underdeveloped and simplistic.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a recognisable introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. However, cohesion is frequently faulty and mechanical. The student relies on repetitive transitional phrases such as 'To support my point' and 'To escalate with my opinion,' which sound unnatural and forced. Paragraphing is attempted, but the internal flow of sentences is disrupted by run-on structures and missing punctuation. For instance, the second body paragraph runs multiple distinct ideas together without appropriate division. Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as pronoun ambiguity ('both are equally important'). Therefore, this performance fits the Band 5 descriptor due to inadequate and repetitive cohesive devices.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, touching on topic-specific terms like 'waste,' 'recycle,' 'municipal cooperation,' and 'segrigate.' However, there are numerous spelling and word-choice errors that permeate the text, such as 'belive,' 'implimenting,' 'envoirment,' 'goverment,' 'responsibilitty,' 'experinece,' 'implis,' and 'dusbins.' While these errors do not completely impede communication because the context is usually clear, they occur frequently and prevent the writing from achieving a higher band. The use of less common lexical items is attempted, but inaccurate spellings and awkward collocations place the lexical resource firmly at Band 5.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some ambition with subordinate clauses ('even if goverment implies laws...'). However, grammatical control is weak. There are frequent errors in subject-verb agreement ('waste from homes are,' 'people does not'), article usage, and punctuation. Many sentences are overly long, unpunctuated run-ons, such as 'even if goverment implies laws for citizen to seprate there waste it will be easy to reclye the waste as earlier in or locality people does not take it...'. These frequent structural and grammatical errors cause some difficulty for the reader, matching the characteristics of a Band 5 performance.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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