Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-09-13

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The chart below shows how frequently people in the USA ate in fast food restaurants between 2003 and 2013.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

 

Student answer (Band 6.5)

The bar chart illustrates the frequency of eating in fast food restaurants in the USA between 2003 and 2013.

Overall, most people preferred eating in fast fod restaurents one a week or one or twice a month, with varying degrees of preferance over the years. On the other hand, eating in fast food restaurents everyday accounted for the least preferred habit, followed closley by never eating in fast food restaurents.

In 2003 and 2006, eating in fast food restaurents once a week was the most frequent answer, accounting for just above 30% for both years, followed closely by eating fast food once or twice a month , reaching about 30% in 2003 and 25% in 2006. Eating fast food several times a week was the third most frequent answer in both years, reaching 16%in 2003 and 20% in 2006, while never eating fast food and eating it everyday were the least preferred , accounting for less than 5% for each habit.

In 2013, changes were observed in the freqency of eating in fast food restaurents, with around 32% of individuals opting to eat fast food once or twice a month, followed closely by eating fast food once a week, while eating fast food once a week and a few times a year were very similar at around 15%. Finally, never eating fast food and eating it everyday accounted for the least amount of people at around 4%.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5

The response successfully addresses all parts of the task by providing an overview of the main trends shown in the bar chart regarding fast food consumption in the USA between 2003 and 2013. Key features are selected and reported, such as the prominence of eating once a week and once or twice a month, alongside relevant comparisons between the years. The writer attempts to cover all years provided in the visual data. While some specific data points could be slightly more fully synthesised, the overview is clear and the core requirements of Task 1 are met.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The response is arranged coherently with a clear overall progression. An introductory paragraph is followed by a general overview, and then detailed body paragraphs discussing the specific years of data (2003/2006 and 2013). Cohesive devices such as 'Overall', 'On the other hand', and 'Finally' are used to signal logical relationships. However, paragraphing and referencing are occasionally mechanical or slightly repetitive in structure, which prevents the response from reaching a higher band. Overall, information flows reasonably well.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms such as 'illustrates', 'frequency', 'individuals', and 'proportion' concepts. However, there are several spelling errors throughout the text, notably 'fod' instead of 'food', 'restaurents' instead of 'restaurants', 'preferance' instead of 'preference', 'closley' instead of 'closely', and 'freqency' instead of 'frequency'. These lexical and spelling errors are noticeable and detract slightly from the overall quality of the writing, though they do not impede communication.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.5

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing participial phrases like 'accounting for just above 30%' and relative clauses. There is good control of basic structures, and punctuation is generally handled correctly. However, there are occasional grammatical inaccuracies and repetitions, such as the repeated phrasing 'eating fast food once a week' appearing twice within the same sentence in the final paragraph. Despite these minor lapses, the majority of sentences are clear and do not impede the reader's understanding.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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