Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-10-20

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)

Nowadays, a lot of industries are growing very fast, at the same time there waste dump is polluting our environment. Plastic is one of that and its consider as most polluting substace. There effects on our earth and what solution everybody can do to help to keep our surrounding clean are dicussed below.

Firstly, plastic is non - biodegradable material, it effects in many ways to pollute our environment. Such as water, soil. Moreover, sea animals dies by eating them or stucking in them. Soil fertility also drop where plactic waste will dump. Along with that, if anybody tries to burn them, some very harmful gases release in open environment which inderctly going to harm human beings too.

Authorities can help by banning them as well as provide a strong knowledge to all the people regarding there effects to out earth. Along with that they can motivate to shift to paper bag as well as placing a heavy fine if they use policy can implement. School and parents can also help their childrens not to use plastic and educate them their side effects so if our young generation get educate regarding that so our environment will be clean in few next years. Its everybody responsibility to use paper bag instead of plastic. Moreover other plastic products like plastic bottles, toys and more thing made by them should need to ban.

In Conclusion, Educating everyone and aware them about there worst effects on our environments can make them not to go with plastic.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You address both parts of the prompt: you identify environmental damage, including harm to sea animals, reduced soil fertility and harmful gases from burning plastic, and suggest action by authorities, schools, parents and individuals. These are relevant points, and the response has a clear overall focus. However, some ideas are less fully explained than others. For example, you mention banning plastic and imposing fines, but do not clarify how these measures would be applied or what alternatives could replace plastic packaging. The effects on water and soil are also named without much explanation. Develop each main point with a cause-and-effect explanation or a specific example, and make the proposed solutions more precise.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, a paragraph on environmental damage, a paragraph on solutions and a conclusion. This gives the reader a coherent overall arrangement, and linking expressions such as “Firstly,” “Moreover” and “In Conclusion” help signal the direction of the discussion. However, some connections are mechanical or unclear. The sentence beginning “Along with that they can motivate to shift to paper bag” does not clearly show who should shift, and the ideas about schools, parents and individual responsibility run together. Use clearer topic sentences and divide or connect related proposals more carefully. Referencing such as “them” and “there” also sometimes makes it difficult to identify the intended subject.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use enough topic-related vocabulary to communicate the main ideas, including “non-biodegradable,” “soil fertility,” “harmful gases,” “banning” and “heavy fine.” This shows an attempt to discuss environmental effects and policy rather than relying only on general terms. However, the range is limited and several word-choice, collocation and spelling errors make parts less clear, such as “there waste dump,” “stucking,” “plactic” and “worst effects.” Some phrases are also unnatural, including “provide a strong knowledge” and “made by them.” Aim for more precise environmental vocabulary and check spelling and word forms. For instance, describe plastic as “polluting” or “persistent,” and use natural combinations such as “raise public awareness” and “impose a fine.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including a conditional idea about burning plastic and a relative clause in “where plastic waste will dump.” The overall meaning is generally recoverable, but some sentence structures are faulty and there are errors in agreement, verb forms, articles and punctuation. Examples include “sea animals dies,” “some very harmful gases release,” and “Its everybody responsibility.” The opening sentence also joins two independent ideas with a comma, while the final sentence of the solutions paragraph becomes difficult to follow because several clauses are joined together. Practise accurate subject–verb agreement and complete clause patterns, and use shorter sentences when a longer structure becomes hard to control.

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.