Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-16

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)

Nowadays, a large number of buildings such as schools and offices have an open-space design as compared todifferent rooms for different catagories. This trend is becoming increasingly common because it offers many benefits. In my opinion, this is a negative development. This essay will discuss the benefits and reasons why it is a negative development in the following paragraphs.

To begin with, there are many reasons why it is becoming a trend to make open space buildings, such as schools and offices. Firstly, thesedays, with the increase in population, cities have less space. So, this idea cannot only help to save their land but also save their money. If offices and schools are open-area buildings, it will also help to save their time because they do not need to spend time on making the walls for seperate rooms. So, it will help both employee and employer. Moreover, they want to create a comfortable environment. When the offices and school buildings will open-space, it will help them to motivate the employees and students by watching other's work.

In addition to this, there are several negative effects of this trend. The first and the foremost one is that lack of privacy. To explain it, if the offices and schools are open, employees and students may not have private spaces for personal and confidential discussions. The second reason is that they do not put more concertration on their work and study because in open-area buildings, people can suffer from disturbance and loud noises of talk, mobile calls and other activities. As a result, it will put negative impact on the study performance of pupils and it can reduce the quality and speed of work. Hence, the productivity may also reduced.

To conclude, although open-area buildings are mainly design for the better use of less space and also for making the comfortable and friendly environment, there drawbacks cannot be ignored. In open-space schools and offices, their concentration and productivity level is very low because of lack of privacy and disturbance.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 1.0

The response completely misses the prompt's actual topic. The candidate wrote about open-space designs in schools and offices, whereas the prompt explicitly asks about plastic waste, its environmental damage, and solutions by governments and individuals. The essay is therefore entirely off-topic. Because the content does not address the plastic pollution prompt at all, the score for this criterion must be heavily penalised. Even though the writer attempts to present a position and develop ideas about open-space floor plans, the failure to respond to the provided task questions regarding plastic bags, bottles, and packaging means the task response criteria cannot be satisfied.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

Despite being off-topic regarding the prompt, the essay displays a clear paragraphing structure with an introduction, body paragraphs addressing advantages and disadvantages, and a conclusion. The writer uses cohesive devices such as 'To begin with', 'Moreover', 'In addition to this', and 'To conclude' to sequence ideas logically. However, referencing is sometimes unclear, and cohesion can feel slightly mechanical. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different arguments, which shows a basic organizational framework, but the lack of connection to the actual task limits the overall score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is adequate for a basic discussion, attempting some topic-specific phrases like 'open-space design', 'confidential discussions', and 'productivity level'. However, there are several spelling errors ('catagories', 'thesedays', 'seperate', 'concertration', 'design' instead of designed) and word-choice awkwardnesses ('make open space buildings'). The lexical range is limited and repetitive, which restricts the score, though communication of the writer's actual (albeit off-topic) ideas is generally achieved.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The text contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as conditional clauses ('If offices and schools are open-area buildings, it will also help...'). However, there are frequent grammatical errors, including tense and subject-verb agreement issues ('When the offices and school buildings will open-space', 'hence, the productivity may also reduced', 'there drawbacks cannot be ignored'). Punctuation and article usage also show persistent inaccuracies. These errors occasionally disrupt the flow, but meaning can still be deciphered.

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