Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-08-13

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 6.0)

A growing number of people in today's time visiting locations where weather condition is severe and challenging for ordinary people to live like Sahara desert or the Antarctic. Travelling to this kind of places allow the travelers to explore eye-catching beauty and provide them educational opportunities. Whereas human population at naturally preserved places posses negative effects on environment and will be responsible for life-threating condition for visitors due to lack of availability of basic facilities.

On the positive side, exploring challenging weather condition locations give the adventurous and thrilling travel experience to individual and chance to discover natural beauty. Such as, visiting the Antarctic allows the travelers to witness rare ocean creatures, snow mountains and photography places to take stunning pictures with their family. As a result, it will not only enjoyable experience but also an ideal opportunity for the scientists or researchers to know about worsen impacts of climate changes on un-touched environment. Apart from that, visitors can learn about how to live without basic needs like transportations, hospitals, limited food options and accommodations. As a result, these types of trips would be responsible for development of essential skills such as organisation, time-management, critical-thinking and problem-solving.

On the negative side, travelling to extreme weather places would be risky and costly as compare to other types of trip. Also, visitors maybe face unforeseen consequences like health issues due to severe hot or cold weather, which results into death or fatal condition for them. Therefore, individuals have to be careful while exploring challenging tourist locations and put more emphasis on their wellbeing over thrilling experience. Also, human activities at the Sahara desert or at the Antarctic would be responsible for air, water and noise pollution and damage the natural environment, which takes more time to recover and sometimes address extinction of various marine species due to water sports and dumping waste into the sea. Therefore, governments have take proactive steps in order to conserve these locations.

In conclusion, visiting severe weather condition tourist places allows the individual to gain adventurous feelings, captivating view of nature and important knowledge regarding environment to researchers. However, it could hamper the natural beauty due to over-crowding at one place, address health problems for them and contaminate the environment.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses both the benefits and disadvantages of visiting extreme environments. The ideas are relevant, such as the educational value for researchers and the environmental impact of tourism. However, the development of these points is somewhat inconsistent. For instance, the mention of 'developing essential skills' like critical thinking is a bit generic and not fully linked to the specific context of extreme travel. While the position is clear, some arguments, such as the mention of 'water sports' in the Sahara, are factually confusing and weaken the overall logical development of the response. The essay covers all parts of the prompt, but the depth of analysis could be improved to reach a higher band.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, with a clear introduction, body paragraphs for benefits and disadvantages, and a conclusion. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'On the positive side', 'Apart from that', and 'In conclusion', which help guide the reader. However, some transitions are mechanical or slightly awkward, such as 'As a result, it will not only enjoyable experience'. Additionally, the referencing is occasionally unclear, and the flow between sentences could be smoother. The paragraphing is appropriate, but the internal cohesion within paragraphs occasionally feels repetitive or forced.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, allowing the writer to express ideas clearly. There are attempts to use less common vocabulary, such as 'un-touched environment', 'proactive steps', and 'captivating view'. However, there are several instances of awkward word choice and collocation errors, such as 'worsen impacts of climate changes' (worsening impacts), 'address extinction' (which should be 'lead to' or 'cause'), and 'life-threating condition'. These errors do not impede communication, but they highlight a lack of precision in lexical control.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. While the writer attempts complex sentences, there are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with articles ('the Sahara desert', 'the Antarctic'), subject-verb agreement ('governments have take'), and preposition usage. Some sentences are clunky, such as 'Travelling to this kind of places allow the travelers', where the plural 'places' conflicts with the singular verb 'allow'. Despite these errors, the meaning remains clear throughout the text. To improve, the writer should focus on subject-verb agreement and the correct use of articles with geographical locations.

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