Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-11-04

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)

There is a belief that people often choose to live their life nearby the place they are born. This essay will examine the main reasons for this and also show its benefits of getting close to memories and family members can deprive them from exploring the outer world and better opportunities.

There are various reasons why pople live most of their lives in their birthplace. They get familiar and used to the environment where they grow up. As it has become the habit so they doesnot care about other cities or life. So, they prefer to stay in the hometown their whole life. In addition, some people do this because their ancestors did the same thing and they feel hesitant to break it.

First of all, there are various advantages of staying nearby your hometown. You are habitual with the environment and people which makes you comfortable. Because of that you dont have the urge to move to anywhere else. Also, since the day you are born you have stayed their for whole life so, people feel too afraid to leave all those memories. For example, if a man stayed at his hometown for 70 years, he would not move to any other place before he die.

Secondly, people miss better opportunity just because they dont want to be far from their home and family. For example, a manager working 50 years got promoted as a senior manager in other country prefer not to move just to stay close to his birthplace and his families. People miss to explore the world because of the conservative thought of needing to stay close to his past life.

To conclude, despite having good opportunities and explore options people prefer to stay close to their birthplace just to stay close to their past and families.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You address the reasons for staying near one’s birthplace and discuss both benefits and drawbacks. Familiarity, family ties, memories, and reluctance to break family tradition are relevant reasons, while missing career opportunities and chances to explore are suitable disadvantages. However, the advantages are mostly presented as comfort and attachment, with little explanation of their practical value, and the examples are hypothetical rather than clearly illustrating a developed point. The introduction also promises to discuss benefits and drawbacks but expresses the contrast unclearly. To strengthen the response, explain how staying close to family or community can provide support, then develop the costs of remaining in one place with a specific, relevant example.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, a paragraph on reasons, separate paragraphs for advantages and disadvantages, and a conclusion. This helps the reader follow the broad direction of the essay. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes repetitive: familiarity and fear of leaving memories recur in both the reasons and advantages sections. Some linking is mechanical, particularly the repeated use of “Also,” “Because of that,” and “For example.” The introduction’s sentence is difficult to follow, and the conclusion largely repeats the central idea rather than drawing the discussion together. Organise each paragraph around one distinct point, use clearer references, and make the relationship between each example and its claim explicit.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant vocabulary for the topic, including “birthplace,” “ancestors,” “opportunities,” “conservative thought,” and “explore the world.” These choices make the main ideas understandable. However, the range is limited by repeated wording such as “stay,” “close,” and “people,” and several expressions are inaccurate or unnatural, including “habitual with the environment,” “miss better opportunity,” and “explore options.” There are also spelling and word-form slips, such as “pople” and “families” where the intended meaning is singular or general. Build a wider set of natural collocations for attachment, community, and relocation, and check spelling and word forms during revision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentences, including a reason clause beginning “because” and a conditional example beginning “if.” However, control is inconsistent, and errors occur often enough to make some sentences awkward or unclear. For example, “so they doesnot care” has incorrect subject–verb agreement and verb form, while “a manager … prefer not to move” has a subject–verb agreement error. The opening sentence, “This essay will examine … and also show its benefits … can deprive them,” is structurally incomplete and difficult to interpret. There are also problems with articles, plurals, and sentence boundaries. Practise building accurate clauses first, then combine them, checking agreement, tense, and punctuation.

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

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