Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-08-07

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

Today more and more tourists are visiting places where conditions are difficult, such as the Sahara desert or the Antarctic.

What are the benefits and disadvantages for tourists who visit such places?

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

 

Student answer (Band 6.5)

Nowadays, many people like to explore new places and they are fascinated by visiting challenging destination such as Sahara desert or the Antarctic. There are several advantages of this trend as well as few drawbacks. Both views will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

Discussing the merits, the foremost one I shall put forward is that tourists enjoy thrilling and unique experiences. For instance explorers can get a chance to do perform adventurous activities in extreme cold or hot weather condition. Furthermore, travelling to challenging places fosters personal growth by encouraging tourists to se step outside their comfort zones, develop resilience and self confidence and enjoy breathtaking natural scenery. Moreover, such as trips help them learn about different ecosystem, and local culture and wildlife, making the journey both educational and memorable. In fact they make unforgettable memories while enjoying new place.

However, there are also some significant drawbacks. One major concern is that a extreme weather condition can leads to many health related issues. For instance, extreme heat in deserts can cause heatstroke and dehydration among visitors and excessive cold temperatures in place such as Antarctica can lead to frostbite. Additionally, tourists may get limited facilities. By this I mean that these remote areas may have poor medical services, limited

accomodation and week communication networks.

In conclusion, challenging destinations provide adventurous and unique experiences for tourists . As well as this helps to boots visitor's personal abilities. Nonetheless, tourists may encounter harsh weather conditions and limited communication networks , making their exploration more challenging.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response6.5
Coherence and Cohesion7.0
Lexical Resource6.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy6.0
Overall6.5

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5

The response addresses both the benefits and disadvantages of visiting challenging destinations. The ideas are relevant, such as personal growth and educational value for benefits, and health risks and limited infrastructure for drawbacks. However, the development of these points is somewhat superficial. For instance, the mention of 'personal growth' and 'educational value' could be supported with more specific examples or deeper analysis to reach a higher band. The position is clear throughout, and the response covers all parts of the prompt, though the depth of argument is limited by the brevity of the paragraphs.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 7.0

The essay is logically organized into clear paragraphs, with an introduction, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Cohesive devices such as 'Furthermore', 'Moreover', and 'However' are used to link ideas. While the progression is generally clear, some transitions feel slightly mechanical. Additionally, there are minor issues with referencing and flow, such as the phrase 'By this I mean that' which is a bit informal for an academic essay. Overall, the paragraphing is appropriate and the central ideas are easy to follow.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, with some attempts at less common items like 'resilience', 'breathtaking', and 'dehydration'. However, there are several spelling and collocation errors, such as 'do perform', 'se step', 'a extreme', 'leads to' (should be 'lead to'), 'accomodation' (spelling), and 'week' (should be 'weak'). These errors do not impede communication, but they demonstrate a lack of precision that prevents a higher score. Expanding the range of topic-specific vocabulary would also be beneficial.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While the meaning is generally clear, there are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with articles ('a extreme'), subject-verb agreement ('a extreme weather condition can leads to'), and spelling/word choice ('week' instead of 'weak'). Punctuation is mostly functional, but there are some spacing issues around commas. The control of grammar is inconsistent, and while complex structures are attempted, they are often marred by minor errors that prevent the writing from being consistently error-free.

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