Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-09-22

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 6.0)

The bar charts compares how often people in the United States ate in fast food restaurants from 2003 to 2013.

Overall, it is clear from graph that most people prefer to eat once a week in restaurants in the United States. The ratio of once or twice a month and several times a week also grew steadily over the period. The percentage of people who eat everyday or never in restaurants are at lowest in the given time period.

The proportion of people in the United States who eat at restaurants once a week or once a month are at the highest. The figures of both type of individuals who ate at restaurants remained stable over the period (2003 - 2013). The overall percentage of these individuals accounted at 33% and 32%. Moreover, the people who ate several times a week also held significant percentage of 20% in 2006 and 16% by 2013.

The number of individuals who ate few times a year also grew steadily. It went from 12% in 2003 to 15% by 2013. The people who ate everyday or never are at the lowest with percentage accounted at 4% average

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The student covers all parts of the task by reporting the main features and making relevant comparisons across the years 2003, 2006, and 2013. An overview is provided, noting general trends such as the popularity of eating once a week and the low figures for daily fast food consumption. However, there are some minor inaccuracies and generalisations in data reporting. For instance, stating that the figures for 'once a week or once a month' remained stable and accounted for 33% and 32% overlooks the fluctuations in specific years (e.g., once a week dropped from 33% in 2006 to 28% in 2013). Nevertheless, the response adequately addresses the prompt and presents a clear summary of the visual data, aligning well with the Band 6 descriptors.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The response is arranged coherently with a clear overall progression from the introduction to the overview and body paragraphs. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different aspects of the chart. However, cohesion at the sentence level is occasionally mechanical or faulty. For example, referencing and linking within the second and third paragraphs lack smooth transitions (e.g., 'The figures of both type of individuals...'). Furthermore, pronouns and determiners are sometimes misused, which slightly disrupts the logical flow between ideas. Overall organisation is present, but cohesive devices need more flexibility and precision to reach a higher band.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for the task, successfully attempting less common vocabulary such as 'proportion', 'significant percentage', and 'grew steadily'. However, there are noticeable word choice and collocation errors, such as 'eat in fast food restaurants' (more naturally 'eat at fast food restaurants') and grammatical infelicities like 'ratio of once or twice a month' instead of 'proportion' or 'percentage'. Spelling is generally accurate, but lexical control is inconsistent. These errors do not impede communication, placing the response solidly in the Band 6 category.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The writer uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as 'The proportion of people in the United States who eat at restaurants once a week or once a month are at the highest.' However, there are several grammatical errors in subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'The bar charts compares', 'proportion... are', 'percentage of people who eat everyday or never... are') and article usage. Complex structures are attempted, but they frequently contain errors. Although these mistakes do not seriously impede communication, their frequency prevents the response from achieving a higher band score.

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

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