Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-09-15

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 5.5)

Shopping is one of the common hobbies among the people. In early days, people used to buy evrything from the local market in their area. However, recently public prefrence shift from community shopes to big shopping malls. I believe it is big loss for the local markets and small businesses. This essay will elaborate on my point of view in the following paragraphs.

To start with, if individuals prefer big malls then small businesses and local citizen will loose their jobs and shopes which can affect local economy and personal wealth. For instance, after development of Toronto premium mall all local shopes are now on the sale due to low encome. They can not afford rents and utilities. Furthermore, Due to large shopping centres people avoid going in small marekts as it is very conveniant for the public to get everything in stop which can affect every small business owners and as a result poverty level is going up day by day.

Moreover, Large mall require less employees then local shopes because nowadays evrything is running through computers and technology so it can affect employment ration of specific town and city. To add more, local shoes buy their inventory from the house businesses or from the local farms which are in affordable price. On the other side, big malls sale everything in high cost as a result citizens end up paying more money.

To conculd, although big malls have more varities in their shopes, local shopes used to sale same items in less money. It is affecting citizens in negeative way because they are paying almost double for the same thing and also affecting local peopple's economy level.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses the prompt by taking a clear position that the shift towards large shopping malls is a negative development. The writer outlines several relevant arguments concerning local employment, the economy, and consumer costs. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited and repetitive. For instance, the point regarding job losses is reiterated across multiple paragraphs without being significantly extended or deepened with more precise details beyond the Toronto premium mall example. Furthermore, there are some sweeping generalisations, such as the claim that citizens end up paying double for the same items in big malls. Consequently, the response satisfies the requirements for Band 6, as it addresses all parts of the task with relevant, albeit somewhat under-developed, ideas.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct points, such as economic impacts and employment issues. However, the progression of ideas is occasionally hindered by faulty cohesive devices and referencing errors. For example, transitional phrases like 'To add more' and 'To conculd' are unnatural or misspelled, and the linking between sentences can feel mechanical. Pronoun referencing and logical connectors are sometimes misused, which affects the smoothness of the reading experience. Overall, the organisational structure is logical enough to earn a Band 6, but cohesion requires more flexibility and accuracy to reach a higher level.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully communicating everyday concepts related to shopping, business, and employment. However, there are numerous spelling and word-choice errors throughout the text, such as 'evrything', 'prefrence', 'shopes', 'encome', 'marekts', 'conveniant', 'varities', and 'negeative'. The writer attempts less common vocabulary items like 'economy', 'utilities', and 'inventory', but these are often undermined by recurrent mechanical errors in spelling. While communication is not severely impeded, the frequency of lexical inaccuracies prevents the score from rising into the higher bands, aligning best with the Band 5 descriptors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting structures such as conditional clauses ('if individuals prefer big malls then...') and relative clauses. However, control over grammar and punctuation is inconsistent. There are frequent errors in subject-verb agreement, such as 'Large mall require' instead of 'requires', and missing articles or incorrect prepositions ('in local marekts', 'at high cost'). Tense consistency is also an issue in places. While the meaning remains mostly clear to the reader, the accumulation of grammatical inaccuracies means that error-free sentences are not in the majority. This profile fits the Band 5 criteria for grammatical range and accuracy.

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