Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-14

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Some people spend most of their lives living close to where they were born.

What might be the reasons for this?

What are the advantages and disadvantages?

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

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Most of time people spend most of their life time on that place where they are born. Although some consider it negative, but I believe to extremely beneficial. Not only because of strong family relationship, comfort and familiarties, but also because of lower living cost.

There are multiple advantages associated with the living close to bron place. Firstly, they have strong family relationship can be considered as leading benefits of this development. As parents already spend lot of time on this place and thus strong relation was build so person prefer to live on such place. Take an example of Germany, where survey conducted in 2015 showed that 80% of people live on the same place where they born just because of strong family relationship which was build already.

Secondly, apart from the family relationship, comfort and familiarties can also be another major benefit. As the person where born have feel comfort because they have no limitation such as language and also understand the local culture of this place. Hence comfort and familiarties can be labelled as most significant advantage, giving this development a positive outlook.

Finally, lower living cost can also be consider a leading benefit of this approach. As the person where born have their own house so if they want to move on another place then their is need to build new house. So, they prefer to live in same place where they born .

To sum up, even though living at the same place where we born have some drawbacks too, but I believe that the benefits in terms of strong family relationship, comfort and lower living cost can make this development an overall positive one.

Advice for Next Attempt

Your essay demonstrates a clear understanding of the prompt and follows a logical structure with a solid introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. You successfully met the minimum length requirement and provided relevant examples. To improve your score, you need to focus on grammar and vocabulary accuracy. Pay close attention to word forms (e.g., using 'familiarity' instead of 'familiarties'), prepositions, and verb tenses. Try to write more complex sentences carefully to avoid grammatical errors. Additionally, ensure you develop all parts of the prompt more equally—if you mention disadvantages in your introduction, make sure you dedicate a body paragraph to explaining them clearly.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by discussing the reasons why people stay near their birthplace, as well as outlining both the advantages and disadvantages, though the latter is only mentioned briefly at the end rather than fully explored in a dedicated paragraph. The position is clear throughout, and the candidate provides relevant supporting ideas, such as family relationships and living costs, alongside a specific example regarding Germany. While some ideas like the disadvantages are under-developed, the main prompt requirements are sufficiently met, aligning well with the Band 6 descriptors where all parts are addressed though some more fully than others.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a concluding summary. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas, such as family relationships, comfort, and living costs. However, cohesion is at times mechanical and repetitive, relying heavily on basic transitional markers like 'Firstly', 'Secondly', and 'Finally'. Furthermore, referencing is occasionally imprecise, as seen with phrases like 'on such place' or 'to live on same place where they born'. Despite these flaws, the logical progression is generally easy to follow, making Band 6 an appropriate reflection of the student's organizational skills.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The candidate demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully communicating everyday concepts related to the topic. Attempts are made to use less common vocabulary, such as 'significant advantage' and 'overall positive one', but these are accompanied by noticeable word-choice and word-form errors, including 'familiarties' instead of familiarity, and repetitive phrasing like 'where they born'. Spelling and morphological inaccuracies occasionally draw attention, but they do not impede communication. This performance fits the Band 5.0 to 6.0 range, stabilizing comfortably at a 5.5 due to the recurring lexical inaccuracies.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writing exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but grammatical control is inconsistent. There are frequent errors in verb tenses, prepositions, and articles throughout the essay, such as 'Most of time people spend most of their life time on that place' and 'their is need to build new house'. Complex structures are often attempted but are marred by faulty construction. While these errors do not completely obscure the meaning and the text remains readable, they occur with high frequency, precluding the essay from achieving a higher band. These characteristics correspond directly to the Band 5 descriptor.

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

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