Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-08-08

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Plastic bags, plastic bottles and plastic packaging are bad for the environment.

What damage does plastic do to the environment?

What can be done by governments and individuals to solve this problem?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Population of the world is increasing day by day, As the use of plastic bags, plastic bottles and plastic packaging as well. In recent time every human on earth use a plastic in different forms. Its an essential need of currunt time however these plastic bags,plastic bottles and plastic packaging are bad for the environment.

As we know that plastic does not desolve in the soil like other materials for example wood,stone,glass,cloth and other like wise. It can remain in his form for hundreds of years and can damage the environment over the time. Plastic is harmfull not only of environment its also effect animals. Due to large amount of plastic which is dispose into ocean by humans every year effect the ocean and sea animals.As per CNN report every year 5 billion ton plastic waste is dispose in ocean which is significantly decreasing the number of fishes.

To safe environment from plastic waste we can recycle it to make new items. Its a governments duty to make a strick rule about plastic waste and they should provide a proper garbagge disposale option of different garbagge bins for wet garbagge and plastic disposal in which individuals house holds and business can dispose a wet garbagge and plastic in seperate bins. This process is costly and will increase the government financial burdon however government can sell those plastic to recover his expense.

There are number of cities in the world which are properly managing this system. I live in wanaka and we have 3 different garbagge bins. Yellow for plastic,blue for glass and red for rubbish. This is effect method to reduce the plastic waste to safe environment.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response6.0
Coherence and Cohesion6.0
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.5
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the prompt, identifying environmental damage caused by plastic and suggesting solutions for both governments and individuals. The ideas are relevant, such as the persistence of plastic in the environment and the role of recycling systems. However, the development is somewhat limited; for instance, the suggestion for governments to sell plastic to recover expenses is a brief point that could have been expanded with more detail. The position is clear, but the overall depth of analysis is consistent with a band 6 level, as some points are presented in a fairly simplistic manner.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, each with a clear focus. There is a progression of ideas from the problem to the solutions. However, the use of cohesive devices is somewhat mechanical and repetitive (e.g., 'As we know that', 'To safe environment'). Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as the use of 'his' to refer to the government or the environment. While the paragraphing is appropriate, the transition between ideas could be smoother to achieve a higher band score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks range and precision. There are frequent spelling errors (e.g., 'desolve', 'currunt', 'harmfull', 'strick', 'garbagge', 'disposale') and some awkward word choices (e.g., 'effect' used as a verb instead of 'affect', 'safe' used as a verb instead of 'save'). While the student successfully communicates their ideas, the limited range of vocabulary and the high frequency of spelling mistakes prevent a higher score in this criterion.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors throughout. Issues include subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'every human on earth use'), incorrect article usage, and awkward phrasing (e.g., 'In recent time every human'). Punctuation is also inconsistent, particularly with comma placement. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to be noticeable and suggest a lack of control over more complex grammatical structures.

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