Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-18

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)

In this modern era, the birthplace has become an increasingly significant priorty for those who want live in a place for long term. The subsequent paragraphs will explore the reasons for this trend, including its benefits and drawbacks with particular emphasis on them before presenting the conclusion.

To begin with, people are emotionally connected with there roots where they want to continue follow the rituals of their tradition and culture. This can also help them to live comfortably with their family, childhood friends and society. For instance, Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala lived in his village after he became famous all over the word as a singer.

On the one hand, individuals have been getting merits of living nearby their birthplace to establish their businesses, their other careers and in various ways to become successful. For example, a lot of famous local businesses are growing up as time passes, with the help of their wider known locality and friend circle.

On the other hand, there are some drawbacks of it which people do accept commonly, such as limited opportunities to spread their tradition, culture, businesses and a lot other things, which cannot be fixed later even after regrets. As like, countless local brands are not able to convert their success to an international brand and always get called as local company.

In conclusion, people like to live nearby their birthplace where they are surviving without facing financially hardships, even can get support from their natives in numerous ways. However, they tackle with limited opportunities but still people have no complaints from their living place. So it is everyonce personal decision, which they change any time.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by explaining reasons why people stay near their birthplace, alongside relevant advantages and disadvantages. A clear position is maintained throughout the essay. The reasons are supported with examples, such as the mention of the Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala to illustrate emotional and cultural connection. However, some of the ideas lack full extension and are slightly repetitive, particularly in the discussion of disadvantages regarding business limitations. This places the response comfortably at Band 6.0, as all parts of the prompt are addressed with relevant ideas, though some development could be more thoroughly explored and articulated to reach higher band levels.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a logical progression of ideas. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate the introduction, reasons, advantages, disadvantages, and conclusion. Cohesive devices are employed to link ideas, such as "To begin with," "On the one hand," and "On the other hand." However, cohesion can sometimes feel mechanical, and referencing is occasionally unclear, such as the ambiguous pronoun reference in phrases like "such as limited opportunities to spread their tradition, culture, businesses and a lot other things, which cannot be fixed later even after regrets." Furthermore, some transition phrases are awkward. These features reflect the characteristics of Band 6.0, where information and ideas are generally well organized, but cohesive faults and mechanical referencing prevent a higher score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items and phrases such as "emotionally connected," "international brand," and "financial hardships." However, there are noticeable lexical errors, awkward collocations, and spelling mistakes throughout the text, including "priorty" instead of priority, "word" instead of world, and the incorrect collocation "surviving without facing financially hardships." Additionally, phrases like "get called as local company" demonstrate limited precision in word choice. These vocabulary limitations and errors place the response at Band 5.5, showing a mix of adequate resource combined with frequent inaccuracies that occasionally restrict fluency and precision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting relative clauses and conditional structures. However, grammatical errors and awkward phrasing are frequent throughout the response. Examples include preposition and article issues, such as "want live in a place for long term" (want to live, for the long term), subject-verb agreement issues like "people have no complaints from their living place," and awkward phrasing in sentences like "As like, countless local brands are not able to convert their success..." and "So it is everyonce personal decision, which they change any time." While these errors do not completely impede communication, they occur regularly and restrict the control of grammar. This aligns with Band 5.0, where limited structures and frequent grammatical errors cause some difficulty for the reader.

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

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