Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-09-14
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 5.0)
Nowadays, people across the globe were migrating from one place to another specifically those living in the rural area moving to cities resulting from a decrease in population. In my opinion, it is a positive development because they can now have an access to any benefits and social services.
On the one hand, there were several reasons why a large number of people migrate to a progressive country. Firstly, due to lack of opportunities and staying in cities is the only option they will have in order to survive. Moreover, living in an urban is more accessible and convinience in providing every individuals daily needs such as a supermarket and it is also near to hospitals
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 4.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0
The response addresses the prompt by stating an opinion that the rural-to-urban migration is a positive development, citing access to social services. However, the essay is severely under-length, containing only 116 words compared to the minimum requirement of 250 words. Because of this major task constraint failure, the ideas are drastically truncated and under-developed, preventing the writer from fully exploring the topic or providing well-supported examples as required by the prompt. Consequently, the score for this criterion is heavily penalised for length.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
The text demonstrates some basic organisational structure with an introductory sentence and the beginning of a body paragraph initiated by cohesive markers such as "On the one hand" and "Firstly". However, the progression is cut short abruptly due to the unfinished nature of the essay. Paragraphing is inadequate as the second paragraph trails off mid-thought without a complete conclusion or a balanced counter-argument. Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as in the phrase "staying in cities is the only option they will have". Cohesive devices are attempted but cannot rescue the disjointed, fragmentary overall arrangement.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The vocabulary used is minimally adequate for the task, featuring common terms related to urbanisation such as "migrating", "rural area", and "population". The student attempts some less common vocabulary, but these attempts are marred by inaccurate word choice and collocations, such as "progressive country" (when referring to cities) and "convinience" (incorrect form). There are also basic word-formation and spelling issues, such as "an access" instead of "access" and "every individuals" instead of "every individual's". The lexical range is limited and strains the reader in places.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The essay displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but attempts at complex structures frequently result in grammatical errors. For instance, the opening sentence mixes tenses inappropriately ("people... were migrating... resulting from"). There are frequent punctuation and syntactic errors, such as missing articles («living in an urban») and run-on sentences lacking appropriate punctuation (e.g., ending abruptly with "hospitals"). While the meaning of individual clauses can usually be discerned, the frequent grammatical inaccuracies cause difficulty and disrupt the flow of reading.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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