Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-07-30

IELTS Writing Task 2 question

In recent years, many small local shops have closed because customers travel to large shopping centres or malls to do their shopping.

Is this a positive or a negative development?

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

 

Student answer (Band 6.5)

Contemporary times, many people prefer to visit bigger malls due to convenience and comfortable shopping. However, others raise their concern that this development put down the small vender income and make them hard to cope with the today expensive life style. I understand, large malls are more convenient but I personally believe that, this would make retail vender life more complicated. Overall, this is a negative trend.

To commence with, the primary reason why some profess that customer going to large shops might impact the local business is financial burden. Small shop keeper completely depends on their customer to earn minimal profits, unlike the large malls put all the extra charges on the customer bill. Not only that, reducing the visitors might impact on their child education, wealth care and daily expenses. Moreover, these small stores improves close relationship with their clients and provides better services. For example, during the festival season in India, many retail shop keepers offer some gratitude to their clients with certain presents.

However, other school of thought feels that shopping in bigger malls provides them more convenience, comfortable and effective. Since these malls helps customers to shop all the products under single roof without being wasting much of their time roaming to several stores. For instance, Reliance mart and DMart has all the household, clothing and electronic products to buy and this enable clients to attract adversely.

To conclude, although, huge malls has various facilities and provide convenient one to shop umpteen products and services under the same roof but I believe, small venders also need to be given importance since they don’t unnecessarily charge their clients instead they offer some presents to improve the connections.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5

The response addresses the prompt by clearly stating a position that the closure of small shops is a negative development. The main ideas—financial hardship for small business owners and the loss of personal service—are relevant. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited. For instance, the mention of 'child education' and 'wealth care' (likely meaning healthcare) is a good point but lacks specific elaboration. The counter-argument regarding convenience is acknowledged, but the rebuttal is brief. To reach a higher band, you should provide more detailed explanations and perhaps a more nuanced exploration of the societal impact beyond just the financial aspect for the shopkeeper.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The essay is organised into clear paragraphs, each with a central theme. There is a logical progression from the introduction to the body paragraphs and the conclusion. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'To commence with', 'Moreover', and 'However', though some transitions feel slightly mechanical or misused, such as 'To conclude, although, huge malls has...'. Referencing is generally clear, but there are instances where the flow is slightly interrupted by awkward phrasing. The paragraphing is appropriate, and the essay follows a standard structure that helps the reader follow your argument easily.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.5

The vocabulary is adequate for the task, allowing you to express your ideas clearly. You attempt some less common items like 'profess', 'adversely', and 'umpteen', though some are used incorrectly or in unnatural collocations, such as 'enable clients to attract adversely'. There are also some minor errors in word choice, such as 'wealth care' instead of 'healthcare' and 'vender' instead of 'vendor'. While these errors do not impede communication, they indicate a need for more precise control over word choice and spelling to reach a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. However, there are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text, such as subject-verb agreement issues ('small shop keeper completely depends', 'malls has', 'these small stores improves') and article usage errors. Punctuation is also inconsistent, particularly with comma placement. While these errors are noticeable and occur frequently, they do not prevent the reader from understanding your main points. To improve, focus on proofreading for basic subject-verb agreement and ensuring that complex sentences are constructed with correct grammatical markers.

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