Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-15
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 4.5)
Waste of plastics and their packaging are dangerious in the society.
because, they cause alot of damageses in the surrounding like lttering the society also the chemicals in the production of these can be harmful to individuals that consume their content.
Firstly, presently most of cities are littered with the subject matter, and offcourse government can legislate on this , with a policy banning people from littering the environment with plastic rather keeping safe for recycling,establishing a recycing company
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 4.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 4.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 4.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 4.5 |
| Overall | 4.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0
The student attempts to address the prompt by mentioning that plastics cause damage to the environment and suggesting government intervention, such as recycling companies and policies. However, the response is severely under-length at only 79 words compared to the required 250 words. Because of this, the ideas are extremely limited, under-developed, and lack sufficient supporting reasons or examples. While the writer touches upon the required prompt questions regarding environmental damage and solutions, the lack of extension and severe word count deficit restrict the score significantly under the official descriptors.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 4.5
The text demonstrates some basic organisational structure with the use of cohesive devices like 'Firstly', but the overall arrangement lacks clear progression. The response is essentially a single short paragraph that trails off into a run-on sentence at the end ('rather keeping safe for recycling, establishing a recycing company'). Paragraphing is entirely insufficient and referencing is occasionally unclear, leading to a choppy and disjointed flow. Cohesive devices are used awkwardly or inaccurately, which places this text at the lower end of the cohesion spectrum.
Lexical Resource — Band 4.5
The vocabulary used is basic and repetitive, with noticeable spelling and word choice errors throughout the text. Examples of lexical errors include 'dangerious', 'damageses' (non-standard pluralisation), 'lttering', and 'recycing'. The student attempts some topic-related vocabulary like 'environment', 'chemicals', 'policy', and 'recycling', but the limited range and frequent errors cause strain for the reader and impede effective communication of ideas.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.5
The grammatical range is very limited, consisting mostly of simple and attempted complex sentences that contain frequent structural and punctuation errors. For instance, the opening sentence has a subject-verb agreement error ('Waste of plastics and their packaging are...'), followed by a sentence fragment starting with 'because,'. Punctuation is largely neglected, and run-on structures appear towards the end of the text. These frequent errors distract the reader and disrupt meaning.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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