Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-08-14

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The diagram below shows how geothermal energy is used to produce electricity.

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

Student answer (Band 4.5)

The table chart illustrates the collection of police budget in 2017 and 2018 in single specific portion of Britain.

And

The pie charts compare the information spending of money in three different department in 2017 and 2018.

Overall, maximum amount of police budget come from National government and lowest from the other sources.

Overall, Highest proportion spent at the salaries and lowest for the technology in both years.

According to bar chart, national government was highest police funding. It was collected from national government in both years, which was 175.5m in 2017 and 178m in 2018 when as from other sources collection of money was lowest. It was around 38m in both years and local tax collection was 91.2m and 102.3m in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

According to pie charts, salaries of officers and staff were most expenditure in 2017 and 2018. It was 75% and 69% respectively. Whereas more 17% spending on buildings and transport at least in both years and technology increased by 8% in 2017 and it increase and become 17% in 2018.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 3.0

The response fails to address the actual task provided. The prompt asks for a description of a diagram showing how geothermal energy is used to produce electricity, but the student has written a report about police budget and expenditure charts. This is a complete misinterpretation of the task. While the student does attempt to report data from the charts they chose to describe, the failure to address the prompt means the response is off-topic. Consequently, the content is irrelevant to the instructions provided, which significantly impacts the score.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The response is organised into paragraphs, and there is a basic attempt to use cohesive devices such as 'Overall', 'According to', and 'Whereas'. However, the logical progression is hindered by the fact that the content does not match the prompt. The use of linking words is somewhat mechanical and repetitive. Paragraphing is present, but the internal structure of the paragraphs is disjointed, making the flow of information feel unnatural. The referencing is sometimes unclear, particularly when discussing the data points.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary is limited and repetitive, relying heavily on basic terms like 'highest', 'lowest', 'money', and 'spending'. There are noticeable errors in word choice and collocation, such as 'collection of police budget' instead of 'police budget allocation' and 'most expenditure' instead of 'the largest expenditure'. The range of vocabulary is insufficient to demonstrate precision, and the errors occasionally make the intended meaning slightly difficult to follow, though the general message remains understandable.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response uses a mix of simple and some attempted complex sentence structures. However, there are frequent grammatical errors, including missing articles ('at least in both years'), incorrect verb forms ('it increase and become'), and awkward phrasing ('when as from other sources'). Punctuation is also inconsistent, particularly with the use of capital letters at the start of sentences that follow conjunctions. While the meaning is generally conveyed, the high frequency of errors in basic grammar limits the score.

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

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