Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-11

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 5.0)

Solving environmental problems should be the responsibility of an international organizational rather than each national government. Do you agree or disagree?

International organizational should be mainly responsible for solving environment challenges instead of each country's government. However, I believe that it would be more beneficial if all three humans, the government, and independent organizations works together.

To commence with the contribution of individuals toward environment problems, since every problems start from ground level, they could change the environment issues drastically. If every one keep their surrounding clean than it would lead more pollution free areas. They can also use home made bags instead of using plastic bags, which produce no-biodegradable waste. Moreover, if people plant one or two trees at their house, it would make more green space, which will lead to afforestation.

Furthermore, despite aforementioned arguments, the organization and the government also very important to solve environment challenges. There are many independent authorities who work voluntary to save our surrounding. For example, a NGO ( non government organization) called Khalsa Aid have been working internationally for last 2 decades to save environment problems. Additionally, the governments are very crucial for solving environment issues because sometime people do not aware of latest issues. Therefore, they can educate people through community programmes. More and more laws should be imposed on public in order to decrease the traffic on roads, which decrease carbon footprints.

In conclusion, It is not solely responsibility of non government organization to safe environment. I think, individuals, the private organizations, and governments should take the collaboration steps to solve environment challenges. Otherwise, it is very hard for anyone alone to tackle this situation.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The response fails to address the specific prompt provided in the instructions. The instructions ask about the damage plastic does to the environment and solutions for governments and individuals. However, the student wrote an essay based on a completely different prompt regarding whether international organizations should be responsible for environmental problems. Because the response is off-topic, it cannot be assessed as a successful response to the set task. While the student does discuss environmental issues, the core requirements of the prompt—identifying plastic-specific damage and proposing solutions for that specific problem—are ignored. This results in a low score for task response as the content does not match the question asked.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into clear paragraphs, and there is a logical progression of ideas within the context of the student's chosen (but incorrect) topic. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'To commence with', 'Furthermore', and 'In conclusion', though some are used slightly awkwardly. The referencing is generally clear, and the paragraphing is appropriate for an essay structure. While the content is off-topic, the structural flow of the writing is coherent and easy to follow, which prevents a lower score in this criterion.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks the precision and range required for higher bands. There are several instances of awkward phrasing or incorrect word choice, such as 'international organizational' instead of 'organizations', 'every problems' instead of 'every problem', and 'work voluntary' instead of 'work voluntarily'. While the student attempts to use some topic-specific vocabulary like 'afforestation' and 'non-biodegradable', the frequent grammatical errors associated with word forms (e.g., 'the collaboration steps') limit the effectiveness of the lexical range.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there is a high frequency of grammatical errors throughout the text. Common issues include subject-verb agreement ('every problems start', 'the organization and the government also very important'), article usage ('the environment problems'), and pluralization. Punctuation is generally functional, but the persistent errors in basic grammar structures occasionally impede the flow of reading. The control of complex structures is inconsistent, and the errors are frequent enough to prevent a higher band score.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.