Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-09-29

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)

Globally, several individuals are increasingly shifting from rural areas to cities in search of better life styles, due to which the number of people in such areas is decreasing rapidly. Although, moving to developed cities offers more employment opportunities and modern life styles, it also poses threats to environment and accomodation. From my perspective, negative results of this development far outweigh its positive consequences.

In many regions of the world, a huge number of residents of the suburbs move to big cities to find better employment opportunities. This development has raised concerns about their accomodation as well as it has polluted the environment at a significant rate. For instance, a large number of high-rise appartments have been building in various areas of the cities to support such a big number of people, as a result of which construction work is rising day-by-day. Subsequently, fuel consumption and carbon-footprint have been increasing every moment. Therefore, building large building blocks for the rural people in big cities has spoiled the air quality to a great extent.

Despite these drawbacks, some people still believe that living in industrial cities of the country would improve their living. This is due to fact that in villages, people often suffer due to unemployment issues, as they are not given enough facilities in villages. For example, many statistics show that poverty level is raising every moment in countryside areas, such as Toba Tek Singh in pakistan is facing such difficulties. Therefore, people think that going to developed areas is crucial for improving their life styles. However, if national schemes will pay special attention to such problems in villages, situation can be improved a lot.

All in all, in spite of improving career prospects, moving to big cities pollutes not only threatens the environment but also results in the decreased amount of houses for residents.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing the rural-to-urban migration trend and clearly stating a position that the negative consequences outweigh the positive ones. Ideas are relevant, such as the discussion on employment opportunities versus environmental degradation and accommodation issues. However, some arguments lack deeper extension or are slightly repetitive, particularly the explanation of carbon footprints and high-rise buildings. The position is maintained throughout the essay, and examples are provided, although referencing a specific location like 'Toba Tek Singh in pakistan' adds a nice touch of personal knowledge. The student meets the criteria for Band 6.5 by addressing the prompt clearly with supported ideas, though further development would elevate the score.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Paragraphing is utilised adequately, with each body paragraph focusing on a distinct theme (drawbacks versus perceived benefits). Cohesive devices are used to link ideas, such as 'Although', 'For instance', 'Subsequently', and 'Despite these drawbacks'. However, some cohesive links feel slightly mechanical or repetitive, such as the frequent use of 'Therefore' and 'This is due to fact that'. Referencing is generally clear, but the logical progression within the second body paragraph stumbles slightly when tying the construction of apartment blocks directly to air quality without fully bridging the intermediate steps.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common items such as 'suburbs', 'carbon-footprint', 'employment opportunities', and 'career prospects'. However, there are notable spelling errors ('life styles' instead of lifestyles, 'accomodation' instead of accommodation, 'appartments' instead of apartments, 'raising' instead of rising in places) and minor word choice inaccuracies (e.g., 'decreased amount of houses' rather than 'decreased number of houses'). While communication is not impeded by these lexical slips, the presence of recurring spelling mistakes and awkward collocations limits the score to a 6.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, featuring relative clauses and conditional forms (e.g., 'if national schemes will pay special attention...'). There are, however, several grammatical errors throughout the text. For instance, the passive construction 'have been building' should be 'have been being built' or simply 'are being built', and the conditional sentence 'if national schemes will pay' contains an unnecessary modal verb in the if-clause ('pay' instead of 'will pay'). Punctuation is generally acceptable, and while these errors do not impede overall communication, their frequency prevents the writer from achieving a higher band.

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