Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-10-04

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 5.0)

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

Overall, the percentage of every day recorded around 4.5 percent in 2003: however, this percentage fell sligthly and remained unchanged in 2006 and 2013.

Individuals who ate fast food several in week stood at just above the 15 percent before climbing to 20 pecent in 2003 and then declined to around 16 percent.

people who ate once in a week recorded around 31 percent in 2003 before increasing to around 33 percent in 2006 and fell sharply to around 27 percent

People who visited restuarant once or twice a month recored 30 percent in 2003 nad declined to 25 percent and then climbed to rougly around 33 percent

Individuals who visited resturant a few times in year recorded 13 percent in 2003 and increased slighlty to 15 percent in 2006 and remained unchange untill 2013

The percentage of people who never visited restuarants stood at 5 percent in 2003 and slightly fell to around 4 percent in 2006 and remained stable till 2013.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.0
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.0

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses the task partially by attempting to cover the various frequency categories shown in the bar chart. However, there are notable inaccuracies in the reported data, such as stating that the percentage for every day was 4.5 percent in 2003 when the chart shows 4 percent, and confusing categories and figures across the timeline. Furthermore, the overview is limited and lacks a clear summary of the main trends or overall patterns in the data, which prevents the response from reaching a higher band level.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

There is some basic organisation in the text as each paragraph corresponds to a different frequency category from the chart. However, there is no clear overall progression or effective use of an overview paragraph. Cohesive devices are minimal, mechanical, or repetitive, and referencing is sometimes unclear, making the flow disjointed. Paragraphing is also irregular, with single-sentence paragraphs used excessively rather than grouping related ideas logically together.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is limited and barely adequate for the task. The student attempts some less common vocabulary related to data trends, such as "declined", "climbing", and "remained stable", but makes numerous word choice and spelling errors, such as "sligthly", "restuarant", "recored", and "unchange". These noticeable errors and awkward phrasings, like "ate fast food restaurants" instead of "ate at fast food restaurants", indicate restricted lexical control and affect precision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The student displays a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on repetitive subject-verb patterns to report the data. Attempts at complex or compound structures frequently contain errors, such as missing prepositions in phrases like "ate fast food several in week" and "once in a week". Frequent grammatical errors and omissions, including incorrect verb tenses and agreement issues, are present throughout the text and cause some difficulty for the reader.

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