Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-09-20

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In many countries, people are now living longer than ever before. Some people say an aging population creates problems for governments. Other people think there are benefits if society has more elderly people.

To what extent do the advantages of having an aging population outweigh the disadvantages?

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

Student answer (Band 5.0)

Nowadays, in each country people are living longer due to many facillties like improved healthcare, advanced medications and a good living standard. As per some people there are disadvantages for the government by the eldery people. Even though government face challenged due to aged ones. I belive the advantages can outweigh the disadvantages if there are more schemes for aged ones which will keep them active in the society.

One major disadvantage of elderly people to the government is the financial pressure. As there is the increase in proportions of aged onesgovernment needs to maintain a proper healthcare, provide pentions to them and different services for them. As there are very less population of workers paying taxes to support for these services.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The response is severely under-length, containing only 122 words compared to the required 250-word minimum. Because of this major omission, the task cannot be fully addressed or developed. The student attempts to introduce a position ('I belive the advantages can outweigh the disadvantages') and touches upon both disadvantages like financial pressure and potential solutions, but the argument remains incomplete and severely under-developed. Due to failing the minimum length requirement and the lack of full development across the prompt, the response falls into the lower bands for Task Achievement.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The text is organized into an introduction and a single body paragraph, but the paragraphing is incomplete and the overall progression is abruptly cut off. Basic cohesive devices are used, such as 'Even though' and 'As there is', but referencing is sometimes unclear, for instance, 'due to aged ones' and 'support for these services'. While there is some logical sequencing attempted in the body paragraph regarding financial pressures and taxation, the lack of a proper conclusion and the brevity of the text restrict its coherence.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student attempts some less common vocabulary related to the topic, such as 'improved healthcare', 'financial pressure', and 'proportions of aged ones'. However, there are multiple noticeable spelling and word choice errors, including 'facillties' instead of facilities, 'eldery' instead of elderly, 'challenged' instead of challenges, 'belive' instead of believe, 'pentions' instead of pensions, and 'very less population' instead of a very small population. These errors demonstrate a limited range that is minimally adequate for the task.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as 'As per some people there are disadvantages for the government by the eldery people.' However, grammatical accuracy is weak throughout the text, featuring punctuation and article omissions, awkward prepositions, and agreement errors like 'government needs' followed by 'provide pentions'. There are frequent errors that cause some difficulty for the reader, although basic meaning is generally discernible.

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

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