Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-10-05

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)

The rural people are migrating to urban areas due to lack of opportunities rural areas provide. In most of the countries, people need to leave the rural area so they can earn a livelihood. For that particular reason, the population of the countryside is on a steady decline. The low population of the countryside creates a negative impact on society.

First of all, the migration of people from rural to urban areas leads to overcrowding in the city area. Even though people are mostly moving to earn a livelihood, they end up making cities cramped. The opportunities get limited. The job market gets saturated as well. There are many people with the same skill set. For instance, in the 1990s, it was easier to get a job than it is now because not many people had the required skill set. Secondly, the skilled workers were rare. Now, the opportunities are limited, and skilled workers are unemployed due to that reason.

On the other hand, the government can create opportunities in rural areas for the people who are still living in rural areas. Yet, the government ignores rural places and puts most of their investments in city areas. The countryside people suffer from the absence of prospects. Whereas, in countries like Pakistan, most rural people still have to work as farmers, as there are not many suitable jobs available in rural areas.

To put it in a nutshell, the rural area does not provide the same opportunities as the urban area does. People are migrating to urban areas in search of earning a livelihood. In the end, the situation of rural areas remains unchanged, and people are continuously moving towards cities.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses the task partially by discussing the movement of people from rural areas to cities and identifying this as a negative development due to urban overcrowding. However, your position is not always clearly sustained throughout the essay, and your ideas remain somewhat limited and under-developed. For instance, when you mention that the low population creates a negative impact, you immediately shift to discussing urban consequences rather than fully exploring the consequences for the countryside itself. Furthermore, the discussion regarding the job market in the 1990s compared to today is underdeveloped and lacks clear integration with the central argument. To reach a higher level, you should ensure that your stance is clearly maintained from introduction to conclusion, and every main idea must be fully extended with robust explanations and specific examples rather than brief, generalized assertions.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

There is some basic organization in your essay, with a clear introduction and conclusion, but the overall progression of ideas is hindered by repetitive phrasing and a lack of smooth transitions. While you attempt to use transitional markers such as 'First of all' and 'On the other hand', your use of cohesive devices is sometimes mechanical and inadequate. For example, the transition 'On the other hand' is used to introduce government investment and farming in Pakistan rather than presenting a contrasting argument to the previous paragraph. Additionally, referencing is occasionally unclear, such as the pronoun use in 'due to that reason' appearing multiple times without varied referencing. To improve this criterion, you need to ensure logical links between sentences and paragraphs build a coherent argument, and paragraphing should be used more purposefully to separate distinct ideas.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

Your vocabulary range is limited but minimally adequate for expressing basic ideas about rural-urban migration. You use common terms appropriately, such as 'livelihood', 'overcrowding', and 'job market'. However, there are noticeable word choice and collocation errors that reflect a restricted lexical repertoire. For instance, writing 'The rural people' instead of 'People in rural areas' sounds unnatural, and phrases like 'skilled workers were rare' could be better expressed as 'skilled labour was scarce'. Furthermore, you rely heavily on repetitive vocabulary, reusing the words 'rural', 'urban', 'opportunities', and 'migration' excessively throughout the text. To achieve a higher band, you must demonstrate a wider and more flexible range of vocabulary, incorporating less common lexical items accurately and avoiding repetitive phrasing by utilizing synonyms and sophisticated collocations.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

Your grammar displays a limited range of structures, relying mostly on simple sentences and straightforward subject-verb-object patterns. When you do attempt more complex structures, they are often repetitive or contain errors in articles, prepositions, and phrasing. For example, writing 'due to lack of opportunities' misses the necessary article 'a', and 'in most of the countries' should simply be 'in most countries'. You also make frequent errors in preposition usage within grammatical patterns, such as 'impact on society' used alongside awkward phrasings. While these errors rarely impede communication entirely, they are frequent enough to cause some difficulty for the reader. To progress, you need to incorporate a wider variety of complex sentence forms with good control over tense consistency, articles, and punctuation.

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