Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-08-27

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 5.5)

In many countries, as the urbanization is continuously accelerating the rural people are migrating to cities for better living and job opportunities. As a result, the population in the countryside shows sharp decline. I strongly believe that this will create a big problems like over population of cities, and affect to rural businesses like agriculture.

A shrinking population in the countryside can have serious effects on local businesses. With fewer people, the demand of goods will decrease, and it affects local shop owners. This will creates an impact to the remaining population, as there will be fewer people the sell will definitely decrease and surviving of the people can be difficult. For example, big stores generating good amount of sales when there was large population of people in the village, as they migrated to cities sells gradually falls, and they have to shut down and relocated the stores. This creates problems to rural peoples as they have to travel longer distance to buy daily essentials from the stores. Migration to cities disrupt social networks and family structures, as individuals leave their family and friends behind.

Furthermore, increasing population of cities makes negative effect on the cities, like prices of the home will rise, employing more people will be difficult, and traffic will increase. There will be strain on the government as they have to provide better education and healthcare to over crowded population.

In conclusion, the decreasing rural population is a negative development that poses challenges for rural businesses. Efforts should be made to address this issue and find ways to revive rural communities

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the prompt by taking a clear position that the trend is negative. The ideas are relevant, focusing on the economic impact on rural areas and the social strain on cities. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat repetitive and lacks depth. For instance, the argument regarding 'big stores' is a bit simplistic and could have been supported with more sophisticated reasoning about the broader economic decline of rural infrastructure. While all parts of the task are addressed, the explanation of the negative consequences could be more nuanced to reach a higher band.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The essay is organized into clear paragraphs, and there is a logical progression of ideas. You use some cohesive devices such as 'Furthermore' and 'In conclusion' to link your points. However, the use of cohesive devices is sometimes mechanical, and there are instances where the flow is slightly disrupted by awkward phrasing, such as 'This will creates an impact to the remaining population'. Referencing is generally clear, but the transition between the economic impact on rural areas and the social impact on cities could be smoother to improve the overall cohesion of the argument.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is adequate for the task, allowing you to convey your meaning clearly. You use some topic-specific terms like 'urbanization', 'migrating', and 'infrastructure' (implied). However, there are several instances of imprecise word choice and collocation errors, such as 'prices of the home will rise' (should be 'housing prices') and 'surviving of the people' (should be 'the survival of the population'). To improve, focus on using more precise collocations and avoiding repetitive phrasing like 'big problems' or 'good amount of'.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While you attempt complex sentences, there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally distract the reader. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues ('This will creates', 'sells gradually falls') and prepositional errors ('affect to rural businesses', 'impact to the remaining population'). Punctuation is generally functional, but the sentence structure could be more varied to demonstrate better control. The errors do not completely impede communication, but they are frequent enough to prevent a higher score.

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