Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-05

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In some countries owning a home rather than renting one is very important for people. Why might this be the case? Do you think this is a positive or negative situation?

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Having your own home is essential in some countries rather than having home at rent. In my suggestion, this is a negative situation because most of the people cannot afford to have a home at rent.

One of the major reason for having own home in some countries is that people are not financially able to pay rent of a home every single month. Such people will have burden of rent on them that they need to pay which makes their life stressful, if they have not a high income source.

Another reason for this case can be that rented homes are usually small and hectic than own ones. People who used to live in spacious and airy houses cannot survive in that homes, if they try, that will effect their mental health as well as physical health. It is necessary for you to spend your life in the environment that makes you feel fresh and energetic. While living in a congested environment also paying for that will effect a persons health badly. So it is beneficial to have your own home, your own space to spend your life easily.

In conclusion, it is a negative situation of having a rented home in some countries due to the financial conditions of a person. Moreover, people used to spend their years in spacious and wide homes find it hard to live in tight and small homes, as most of the homes on rent are congested. Having your own home, person lives a happy and healthy life.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt by discussing why homeownership is valued and giving a clear position that this is a negative situation, though there is a misunderstanding of the prompt where you argue that people cannot afford to rent rather than focusing on the cultural or financial importance of owning over renting. Ideas are limited and under-developed, relying on repetitive points about financial stress and property size rather than extending them with deeper analysis or examples. For instance, when you state that rented homes are small and hectic, the point remains basic and lacks sufficient elaboration to progress further.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

There is some organisation in the essay, with a clear introduction and separate body paragraphs addressing different reasons, followed by a conclusion. However, there is a lack of clear overall progression as ideas tend to loop back to similar financial and space arguments without smooth transitional flow. Cohesive devices are sometimes inadequate, inaccurate, or over-used, such as the repetitive use of words like 'Moreover', 'Also', and 'So' to link sentences. Paragraphing is present, but internal cohesion within paragraphs can feel mechanical and abrupt, limiting the overall readability of the text.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is limited but minimally adequate to convey basic ideas, featuring frequent use of simple terms such as 'home', 'life', and 'house'. There are noticeable lexical errors and awkward collocations that cause some difficulty for the reader, such as 'having home at rent', 'high income source', and 'effect a persons health'. Less common lexical items are attempted, but inaccuracies in word choice and word formation, such as writing 'effect' instead of 'affect', prevent the response from achieving a higher score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writing demonstrates a limited range of structures, relying mostly on simple sentences alongside some basic complex forms. Attempts at more complex sentence structures are often faulty, such as in the phrase 'People who used to live in spacious and airy houses cannot survive in that homes, if they try, that will effect their mental health'. There are frequent errors in grammar and punctuation, including missing articles ('pay rent of a home'), incorrect prepositions ('pay rent on them'), and pronoun agreement issues, which frequently cause difficulty and require the reader to re-read to grasp the intended meaning.

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