Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-09-21

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)

In different parts of the world, the people from the country side are heading to the cities and the population size in rural areas is declining.

This essay contends that moving to cities and leaving the villages is a negative development. This can lead healthy food problems to a great extent moreover it can also highly impact cities in a negative way.

Firstly, individuals heading towards cities and leaving the country side can give rise to problems like food shortage. As we know that most of the mineral food we use in our daily lives is a gift from the urban areas and our country's economy also depends on it. If there is no proper care given attention to this food industry than both the citizens and country experience bad circumstances. For instance, according to WHO (world

health organization) more than

10,000 individuals headed from Pakistan

towards the cities leaving

their villages and it

resulted in a great

food shortage and affected

the Pakistan's economy.

Secondly, if people kept

rushing to the city side

than it may congest the

cities and overpopulate

them, this can cause

bad noise and environmental

crisis.

To illustrate, [crossed-out text: P] paper

according to the Indian

government, masses of

individuals moved to

Mumbai and it became

dramatically papulated

where people faced

a lot of crisis as well.

To conclude, we can say

that moving to cities is

crucially negative in

every aspect particularly

in means of food and population.

Government should provide enough

facilities so people do not rush to cities.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response addresses the prompt by clearly stating a position that the rural-to-urban shift is a negative development. Two main reasons are presented: food shortages and urban overpopulation/congestion. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited and relies on sweeping or inaccurate generalizations, such as claiming that 'most of the mineral food we use in our daily lives is a gift from the urban areas' (which conflates urban and rural roles in agriculture). Furthermore, the specific examples provided, like the unsourced WHO statistic regarding Pakistan, lack appropriate precision and context. Although all parts of the task are addressed, the support remains underdeveloped, aligning the response with Band 5 descriptors.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay is divided into logical paragraphs with a clear introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Transitional markers such as 'Firstly', 'Secondly', and 'To conclude' are used to structure the text, though some cohesive devices are mechanical or awkwardly placed (e.g., 'moreover it can also highly impact'). Paragraphing is generally visible, although the formatting presented by the student shows erratic line breaks that disrupt smooth reading. Referencing is sometimes unclear, such as the pronoun 'this' in 'this can cause bad noise'. Progression is somewhat hindered by repetitive phrasing and disjointed sentence structures, placing the essay firmly at Band 5.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is basic and repetitive, frequently relying on simple terms like 'people', 'cities', and 'bad'. There are noticeable word-choice errors and awkward collocations, such as 'mineral food', 'healthy food problems', and 'papulated' instead of 'populated'. Less common vocabulary is attempted with limited success and noticeable inaccuracy. While the language is minimally adequate to convey the basic argument, the frequent lexical errors and narrow range restrict the score to Band 5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but attempts at complex structures are frequently faulty or awkwardly constructed, such as 'If there is no proper care given attention to this food industry than both the citizens and country experience bad circumstances.' Punctuation and grammatical errors are frequent, including incorrect conjunction usage ('than' instead of 'then') and missing prepositions or articles. These errors can cause occasional difficulty for the reader, matching the requirements of Band 5.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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