Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 2 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-09-24

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 5.0)

In recents years, it became trends to travel to big shopping malls to shop small item, instead of local shops nearby and this trends leading to positive outcome morethan negative outscome.

Nowadays, in a big cities, people prefers to go for shopping in big shopping centres, where they manage to buy everything what they need at one place. Whereas, in the local market, they have to travel from one shops to another shop to complete the check list of shopping. For instance, stores like walmart always seen overcrowded, where buyers shop clothes, groceries, stationaries, furniture and so on. Whereas, in the local market groceries, clothes and furnitures have each dedicated shops. Moreover, in the harsh weather such as extreme hot and extreme cold, it is more convenient to do shopping in shopping malls instead of local market.

The only negative outcome I could see for local shop owners, who invested thousands of dollar and still unable to fulfill buyer's expectation and unable to provide as good shopping experience as big shopping malls are able to provide.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response attempts to address the prompt by discussing whether the closure of local shops due to the rise of shopping malls is a positive or negative development, expressing a clear position that it is mostly positive. However, the task achievement is significantly hindered by the length requirement not being met; the response contains only 176 words, falling well short of the 250-word minimum. Because of this under-length, the ideas are under-developed and lack the necessary extension and support required for higher bands. The discussion touches upon convenience, product variety, and the impact on local shop owners, but these points remain superficial. For instance, the mention of big stores like Walmart is brief and lacks detailed elaboration. Consequently, this warrants a band score of 5.0.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The response demonstrates some basic organization with an introduction, a body paragraph supporting the positive view, and a brief concluding thought presenting the negative side. However, the overall progression is limited due to the shortness of the text. Cohesive devices are used, but they are sometimes mechanical or awkwardly placed, such as the repeated use of 'Whereas' to start clauses, which does not always fit grammatically or logically (e.g., 'Whereas, in the local market groceries...'). Paragraphing is attempted, but the final negative viewpoint is isolated in a very brief single-sentence paragraph, which weakens the structural integrity of the essay. Referencing and conjunctions are sometimes faulty. Based on these organizational shortcomings and repetitive cohesive devices, a band score of 5.0 is appropriate.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is basic and repetitive, reflecting a limited range that is only minimally adequate for the task. The student attempts some topic-related vocabulary such as 'shopping centres', 'local market', and 'convenient', but also makes noticeable word choice and morphological errors, such as 'recents years', 'trends leading', 'morethan', and 'outscome'. Additionally, there are awkward phrasings like 'shop small item' instead of 'small items'. While the meaning is generally clear despite these errors, the lack of a wider lexical range and the frequent slips prevent the response from achieving a higher band. Therefore, a band score of 5.0 aligns well with the descriptors for a limited yet minimally adequate vocabulary.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but attempts at complex structures frequently contain grammatical errors. Examples of structural and agreement inaccuracies include 'it became trends', 'people prefers', and 'stores like walmart always seen overcrowded' (missing auxiliary verb). There are also punctuation and preposition errors throughout the text. These frequent errors cause some difficulty for the reader and demonstrate weak control over basic grammatical structures, such as subject-verb agreement and tense consistency ('In recents years, it became trends...'). Because the grammatical range is limited and accuracy is low, with errors occurring in a large proportion of the sentences, this performance corresponds to a band score of 5.0.

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