Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-09-28

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 some countries around the world people are migrating from villages to cities as a result the population of rular areas is declining. In my opinion, movement of residents from remote areas would negative consequences because it may lead to urbanization related problems and pose threat to food security.

The world has already struggling with the urbanization issues in many countries due to rapidly growing of population for the last few decades. In this situation internal migration of inhabitance of countryside regions give rise to issues related to infrastucture of urban areas. When people move from rular areas to cities it also contributes in a problems like transports, overcrowding and inflammation due to increase in the demand of real estate. For example, In my city a large number of people moved from rular areas to city for better future opportunities but laterly it starting problems for local citizens by disturbing their businesess and decreases the jobs availibilty as competition increases.

The livelihood of rular people mostly dependent on agriculture which is the backbone of many countries gdp. As more people leave the rular areas, they may sold their Agri-lands and it also may decline the workforce availibilty, which can reduce food production and it may be difficult for growers to meet the required production and leads to a extreme level of food femine and insecurity in the futue.

To conclude, Migration of residence from rular areas have many negative impacts such as its may contribute in urbanization issues as well as it also lead to food security problmes.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response successfully addresses the prompt by clearly presenting a position that the movement of rural people to cities is a negative development. The writer identifies two main consequences: urbanization-related problems and a threat to food security. The ideas are relevant and generally supported, such as mentioning traffic, overcrowding, and the impact on agriculture and GDP. However, the development of these ideas remains somewhat limited and repetitive, with generalisations rather than deep elaboration. For instance, the example about the writer's city is brief and lacks specific detail. This places the response comfortably at Band 6.0, as all parts of the task are addressed with a clear position, but some ideas are slightly under-developed.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay demonstrates a clear overall progression and logical organisation, featuring an introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct arguments. However, cohesion within and between sentences is sometimes mechanical or faulty. For example, run-on sentences and missing punctuation are present, such as in the opening sentence: '...as a result the population of rular areas is declining.' Additionally, referencing and transitional phrases are basic or repetitive, often relying on 'As more people...' or 'To conclude,'. While the text remains coherent, these cohesive shortcomings and occasional lack of smooth transitions prevent the essay from reaching a higher band, making Band 6.0 an accurate reflection of the descriptor requirements.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The writer displays an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common lexical items such as 'urbanization', 'infrastructure', 'food security', and 'backbone'. However, there are numerous spelling errors ('rular' instead of rural, 'inhabitance', 'infractructure', 'availibilty', 'sold' instead of sell, 'femine', 'residence' instead of residents) and lexical inaccuracies or awkward collocations ('inflation due to increase' instead of rising living costs, 'starting problems'). These errors do not completely impede communication, as the reader can still grasp the intended meaning, but they occur frequently enough to restrict the score to Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The essay exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, attempting complex forms with dependent clauses, such as 'When people move from rular areas to cities it also contributes in a problems like...'. However, grammatical accuracy is weak throughout the text. There are frequent errors in verb tense and agreement ('The world has already struggling', 'it starting problems', 'Migration... have', 'its may contribute'), missing articles, and preposition misuse ('contributes in a problems'). Punctuation is also neglected, resulting in run-on sentences. While a few error-free simple sentences exist, the frequency of basic grammatical errors that cause some difficulty for the reader aligns the response with Band 5.0 descriptors.

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