Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-08-15

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In many countries around the world, rural people are moving to cities, so the population in the countryside is decreasing.

Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

 

Student answer (Band 6.0)

Since the industrial revolution, the tendency to migration from rural areas to urban centers is increasing in many countries. Though this phenomenon has both positive and negative aspects, I believe that the negative impact of moving away is more noticeable.

To begin with, citizens are moving to urban areas for better education, secure jobs and to lead an improved life, which eventually give advantage to the government. The authorities get more access to those abandoned places to utilize the area to serve the public. For example, government can use the area for research, to build factories and mills, and many more. It also can be used for agriculture.

From another perspective, rapidly growing populations in urban centers can lead to various problems, such as shortage of houses, rising rent, traffic problems and many more. This also cause a shortage of workers in agricultural land, as the majority of rural people were engaged in agriculture. Furthermore, there are some villages where most of the residents are elders who can not contribute significantly to develop their village, which is also one of the major reason for migration to urban centers. People are eventually losing their roots as well as their culture. For instance, there is a village called "Ghost village" in Japan, because population in that village is less than 100, which caused by rapid population decline.

In conclusion, people are moving to urban areas for insufficient public facilities. Although, it is beneficial in some respect, it's negative side is not deniable.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt by discussing both the positive and negative aspects of rural-to-urban migration, ultimately taking a clear position that the negative impact is more significant. The ideas are relevant, such as the economic benefits for governments versus the social and agricultural decline in rural areas. However, the development of these points is somewhat uneven. For instance, the argument regarding government utilization of abandoned land is a bit underdeveloped and lacks a clear connection to the overall negative stance. To improve, ensure that every point directly supports your main thesis and provide more depth to your explanations rather than listing multiple points briefly.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The essay is logically organized with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas. Cohesive devices such as 'To begin with', 'From another perspective', and 'Furthermore' are used to guide the reader through the argument. However, some transitions feel slightly mechanical, and the referencing in the conclusion is a bit weak, as it summarizes the points without fully synthesizing the argument. The flow between sentences is generally smooth, but the connection between the idea of 'insufficient public facilities' in the conclusion and the preceding body paragraphs is not entirely clear.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, allowing the writer to express ideas clearly. There is an attempt to use topic-specific vocabulary such as 'industrial revolution', 'urban centers', and 'population decline'. However, the range is somewhat limited, and there are occasional inaccuracies in word choice, such as 'give advantage to the government' instead of 'benefit the government' or 'insufficient public facilities' in the conclusion, which does not accurately reflect the earlier points about migration. To reach a higher band, incorporate more precise collocations and a wider variety of academic vocabulary.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While the meaning is generally clear, there are several grammatical errors that occur throughout the text. For example, 'government can use' should be 'the government can use', 'which caused by' should be 'which is caused by', and 'it's negative side' should be 'its negative side'. Additionally, there are some issues with subject-verb agreement and article usage. While these errors do not impede communication, they are frequent enough to prevent a higher score. Increasing the frequency of error-free complex sentences would improve this 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.