Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-09-26
IELTS Writing Task 2 question
Some people say that it is possible to tell a lot about a person’s culture and character from their choice of clothes.
Do you agree or disagree?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Student answer (Band 5.5)
Nowadays, people have different opinions about clothes which can show the cultural background and attire which can easily know about their culture. I partly agree with this statement and I will explain the reasons in the upcoming paragraphs,
To begin with, Traditional clothes shows the culture background of the person religion. To expain, if person wear a clothes from their cultures it is very easy to get to know about the which culture he is beloging from as well as the religion. For instance, Indian people wear a saree or males wear a turban so it is easy to estimate about that they are from the Indian culture and hindu religion.
Secondly, a person choice of clothes can somtimes show their character and personality. Some people like to wear a colourful clothes and fashionable clothes because they like to enjoy these kind of clothes. others prefer to wear a simple and comfort clothes like it. For example, confident person choose the modern clothes for the attractviness and more confident.
However, clothes cannot tell us everything about the person character. People sometime choose their clothes because of their workplace weather, money or special occasions. For example, employees may wear a formal clothes because it is required by the company, even if they personaly love to wear the casual clothes.
In conclusion: I agree that clothing can tell us lot about the person's culture and can provide the personality. However, Clothes do not completely describe the someone's charcter.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 6.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5
The response addresses the prompt by discussing both sides of whether clothing reveals culture and character, taking a clear position ('I partly agree'). Ideas are supported with relevant examples, such as Indian traditional attire and the impact of workplace dress codes. However, the development is somewhat limited and repetitive in places. Furthermore, the length requirement of 250 words is not met, as the text contains 246 words. Consequently, a small penalty has been applied to this criterion for falling slightly short of the minimum word count, reflecting Band 5.5 performance overall.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0
The essay is organised into an introduction, clear body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used to separate different points, such as cultural clothing versus character and external factors influencing dress. However, logical progression is occasionally disrupted by mechanical or faulty cohesive devices, such as 'To expain' and abrupt transitional phrases. Referencing is sometimes unclear, and the conclusion is awkwardly punctuated ('In conclusion: I agree...'). Despite these flaws, an overall structure is discernible, matching the Band 6 descriptor.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'traditional clothes', 'cultural background', and 'attractiveness'. However, there are notable lexical errors and awkward word choices throughout the text, including 'know about their culture', 'person religion', 'beloging from', and 'comfort clothes'. Spelling errors like 'attractviness' also occur. These errors do not completely impede communication, but they restrict the lexical score to Band 5.5.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as conditional-style constructions and relative clauses. However, control over grammar is inconsistent. There are frequent grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement issues ('Traditional clothes shows'), missing articles ('wear a formal clothes'), incorrect prepositions ('beloging from'), and awkward phrasing ('clothes like it'). While these errors rarely completely obscure the writer's meaning, they are frequent enough to prevent the response from reaching Band 6, placing it firmly at Band 5.0.
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.