Problem-solution essay IELTS band 7 example: environment topic, scored

A band 7 problem-solution essay is not a better-written version of a band 6 one; it is usually the same English answering the question that was actually asked. Below is a full 274-word environment answer scored 7 across all four criteria, followed by the same essay rewritten to answer the wrong noun — causes instead of problems — so you can see what that single misreading does to Task Response while the English stays identical.

If you are looking for an IELTS problem solution essay band 7 example with the marking shown rather than asserted, this is the sequence: two prompts that look the same, one essay, four criteria, and one demonstration of the failure.

Two prompts, one topic, one word of difference — and that word decides what your first body paragraph has to contain.

Two prompts that look the same

Read these two versions of the same topic:

A. In many cities, the amount of waste produced by households is increasing every year. What problems does this cause, and what solutions can you suggest?

B. In many cities, the amount of waste produced by households is increasing every year. What are the causes of this, and what solutions can you suggest?

Same topic, same solutions half, completely different first half. Prompt A wants the consequences of rising household waste. Prompt B wants the reasons it is rising. An answer describing packaging habits and online shopping is a good response to B and a partial response to A — and partial responses are what the Task Response descriptors are built to detect.

Be careful about how you frame this to yourself. It is not that IELTS maintains two officially separate question types; British Council teaching material on problems and solutions moves between "causes" and "problems" fairly loosely within a single activity. The rule that survives that inconsistency is simpler and more reliable: answer the noun the prompt used. If it says problems, describe consequences. If it says causes, explain why the situation arose. IDP's own guidance makes the same point from the other direction — a formulaic answer that closely matches the question rather than addressing it loses marks.

Both prompts above were written for this article. They reproduce a common question shape rather than reprinting a past paper.

The essay, in full

This is an answer to Prompt A. It contains no statistics, because Task 2 does not require real data and unverifiable numbers are a liability rather than an asset — where the answer needs evidence, it hedges.

The volume of rubbish produced by urban households is rising in many countries. This trend creates real difficulties for city authorities and for the communities that live near disposal sites, though a combination of pricing and better collection can reduce it.

The most immediate problem is capacity. Landfill sites close to large cities fill up, and once they do, waste has to be carried further away, which increases both cost and traffic. A second problem falls on the areas where that waste ends up. Residents near disposal sites tend to complain about smell, vermin and declining property values, and these are usually people who had little part in producing the rubbish in the first place. There is also a public health dimension, since waste that is collected irregularly in dense neighbourhoods attracts pests.

The most effective solution is to make households pay in proportion to what they discard. Where a council charges by the bag or by weight instead of through a flat tax, residents have a direct financial reason to separate recyclable material. This has to be introduced alongside convenient collection, however, because a charge without an easy alternative produces illegal dumping rather than less waste. Authorities should therefore fund frequent kerbside recycling and accessible drop-off points before the charge begins. Manufacturers can also be required to take back their packaging, which moves part of the cost to the firms that design it.

Rising household waste is a problem of capacity, of fairness to the communities that host disposal sites, and of public health. Charging by volume, supported by collection that makes separation easy, addresses all three more directly than information campaigns do.

Scored 7 / 7 / 7 / 7

Task Response — 7. Both main parts of the prompt are appropriately addressed: three problems, two solutions, and every problem named is a consequence of rising waste rather than a reason for it. The position — pricing plus infrastructure — is clear in the introduction and developed in the third paragraph rather than merely repeated. What holds it at 7 rather than 8 is depth: the public health point is asserted in one clause and never extended, so the development is uneven across the three problems.

Coherence and Cohesion — 7. The information progresses logically and the paragraphing is functional: problems, solutions, close. Referencing is handled without strain ("that waste", "these are usually people", "the charge"), and the one place the essay could have drifted — the shift from problems to solutions — is carried by a topic sentence rather than a signpost phrase. It stays at 7 because the cohesion is competent rather than skilful; the sequencing inside the problems paragraph is additive ("A second problem", "There is also") rather than ordered by weight.

Lexical Resource — 7. The resource is sufficient to allow some flexibility and precision: disposal sites, kerbside, in proportion to what they discard, flat tax. The essay avoids the topic's stock phrases. It stays at 7 because a few choices are plain where a more precise one existed ("real difficulties", "better collection"), and there is no evidence of less common idiomatic usage.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — 7. A variety of complex structures appears — conditional relative clauses ("Where a council charges…"), non-finite clauses ("collected irregularly"), a fronted concessive ("This has to be introduced alongside convenient collection, however"). Errors are rare and do not impede communication. It stays at 7 because the range, while varied, leans on the same two or three patterns across paragraphs.

Four criteria at 7 give a Task 2 score of 7 for this answer.

The misread demo

Now the same writer, the same vocabulary, the same sentence patterns — but answering Prompt A's first half as though it had said causes:

The most immediate cause is the growth of packaging. Products that once arrived loose are now sold in layered plastic and card, and online retail has multiplied the volume of that material arriving at the door. A second cause is smaller households: more people living alone means more separate purchases of the same goods, each with its own container. Convenience food has had a similar effect, since single-portion meals generate more packaging per unit of food than cooking from ingredients does.

The English is untouched. One of the two main parts of the task is simply not answered.

Read that paragraph on its own and it is good writing. The vocabulary is at least as precise as the original, the structures are the same, and it sits within a dozen words of the paragraph it replaced. Nothing has happened to Lexical Resource or to Grammatical Range and Accuracy.

What has happened is that a prompt asking for problems now has one paragraph of causes and one of solutions. One of the two main parts of the task is unanswered. That is the situation the Task Response band 5 line describes — "The main parts of the prompt are incompletely addressed. The format may be inappropriate in places." — and no amount of English quality in the remaining paragraphs pulls that part back, because the missing content is content, not expression.

This is why the misreading is expensive out of proportion to how small it feels. It costs you one criterion outright while leaving the other three looking healthy, which is also why it is hard to self-diagnose: the essay reads well.

Turning a band 6 solution into a band 7 solution

The second thing that separates these two bands in this question type is the solutions paragraph. Band 6 solutions are usually true but unowned: nobody in particular does them, by no particular means, with no result you could check. Band 7 solutions name an agent, a mechanism, and an outcome that could in principle be observed.

Generic version	Agent + mechanism + observable outcome
"Governments should educate people about recycling."	"Councils can send each household a sorting guide with its first pay-by-weight bill, so the instructions arrive at the moment the cost becomes visible."
"People should recycle more."	"Residents separate more when sorted material is collected weekly at the kerb; where separation requires a trip across the city, the rate of separation falls."
"Companies should use less packaging."	"Regulators can require producers to carry the disposal cost of the packaging they sell, which puts the decision with the firm that designs it."
"There should be stricter laws."	"Enforcement teams can fine illegal dumping, but only once free drop-off points exist — otherwise penalties replace the alternative instead of supporting it."
"Technology can solve this."	"Cities can fund sorting plants that recover recyclable material from mixed waste, reducing the share of collected waste that reaches landfill."

Notice that none of the upgraded versions is longer by much, and none of them contains a number. Precision here is structural, not statistical. It also feeds Task Response directly: a solution with a mechanism can be developed in the next sentence, while a solution without one can only be restated.

FAQ

Do I have to write two problems and two solutions?

No. There is no official requirement about how many of each, or about paragraph length. The essay above gives three problems and two solutions because that is what the argument needed.

How long should the essay be?

The published requirement is "at least 250 words". Advice about an ideal range of 250 to 350 comes from preparation sites, not from the test producers. The answer above is 274 words, which leaves room to check it.

Can I invent examples and statistics?

Invent examples, yes — Task 2 assesses your ability to present and justify an argument, not your recall of data. Inventing statistics is a bad trade: a hedged example costs you nothing, while a fabricated figure adds a claim you cannot support if the rest of the paragraph is examined.

What do I do if the prompt says "causes"?

Answer causes. The reliable instruction is to take the noun in the prompt and build the paragraph around it. If the prompt names both — some do — give each its own paragraph.

Is a problem-solution essay marked differently from other Task 2 types?

No. The same four criteria and the same descriptors apply to every Task 2 response. What changes with the question type is what "the main parts of the prompt" refers to.

Related reading

• IELTS Task 2 discussion essay band 7.5 sample — the same Task Response trap on a different question type
• Band 6 to band 7: the same essay rewritten — every edit tagged to the criterion it moved
• IELTS Task 2 introductions scored line by line — counting the parts of a prompt before you write
• Task Achievement vs Task Response — which criterion is marking which task

Official task instructions are on ielts.org.