Samples / Task 2 essay / Advantages and disadvantages / Band 6.5

Tourism Growth in Developing Countries Band 6 Essay

A practice IELTS Academic Task 2 essay on the advantages and disadvantages of tourism growth in developing nations, written at a Band 6 level.

The question

Tourism has grown rapidly in many developing countries. Do the advantages of this growth outweigh the disadvantages for those countries?

In the recent years, tourism have grown very fast in many developing countries who need money to improve their economy. Many people think this is a bad thing because of the environment, but other people believe it is good. In this essay, I will discuss both sides and show that the advantages of tourism are bigger than the disadvantages. Firstly, tourism brings a lot of money to developing countries. When tourists visit these countries, they spend money on hotels, food, and transport. This money can spent by the government to build schools and hospitals, which helps the local people. For example, in Thailand, tourism is a major industry and many local peoples depend of tourism for their daily life. Without tourism, these countries would find it very difficult to develope their infrastructure. Secondly, there are some disadvantages of this growth. One major problem is that tourists can damage the environment. They throw rubbish on beaches and consume a lot of water, which is very bad for local communities. Also, sometimes the culture of the developing countries is lost because local people try to copy the tourists. For instance, young people might stop wearing traditional clothes and start wearing western clothes instead. In conclusion, although tourism causes some problems like environmental damage and cultural changes, I think the benefits are more important. Tourism brings essential money to developing countries and creates many jobs. Therefore, the advantages of tourism outweigh the disadvantages because tourism is the best way for these countries to get money.

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This answer was written by a language model to a real exam question, then scored by Bandly against the four public band descriptors. The band is a software estimate. No examiner has marked it, and the band a real examiner would award may differ. Scored with google/gemini-3.5-flash on 2026-09-08.

Estimated overall

6.5

Mean of the four criteria, rounded the way the exam rounds it.

Task Response 7

You are at Band 7 because you clearly answer the question and cover both advantages and disadvantages with a consistent position, but your ideas are somewhat general and not fully extended or specific enough for Band 8.

Coherence and Cohesion 6

The response demonstrates a clear overall progression and uses paragraphing, but the referencing is not always clear or appropriate, and some cohesive devices are used mechanically.

Lexical Resource 6

You use an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, but occasional inaccuracies in word choice and word formation prevent you from achieving a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy 6

While a mix of simple and complex sentences are used, frequent errors in subject-verb agreement and verb form limit the score.

What would take this higher

To elevate your Coherence and Cohesion score from a band 6 to a band 7, you should focus on using more natural, varied cohesive devices instead of mechanical transition signals like "Firstly" and "Secondly" to start your paragraphs. Additionally, you can improve your referencing by ensuring pronouns clearly connect to their referents, such as making sure "this money" in the first body paragraph links smoothly to the previous sentence without grammatical confusion. Replacing repetitive linking words with more sophisticated transitional phrases that show the relationship between ideas will help create a more seamless flow.

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