Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Recent IELTS Exams (Canada & India) · 2026-08-29

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The pie charts below show how working adults in a particular country spent their time in 1958 and 2008.

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

* Note: these aren’t the original diagrams given in the test, they were recreated for the purpose of demonstration.

Student answer (Band 6.0)

The charts illustrate the ways through which working individuals of a specific country have spent their days while doing several activities in 1958 and 2008.

Overall, these pie charts show that both in 1958 and 2008, working was the highly preferred activity to be carried out along the day. Similarly, least days were spent by the persons while travelling to their respective working destinations both in 1958 and 2008.

In 1958, relaxing at home represents 8% of the activity performed during the day while in 2008, it jumped to 13%. Playing sports remained almost constant both in 1958 and 2008 as only a mild shift from 6% in 1958 to 7% in 2008 was observed.

On the other hand, spending time outside with either friends or family saw a significant decline from 19% in 1958 to 6% in 2008. Similarly, a sharp decline in sleeping behaviour was confirmed as it was 32% in 1958 before declining to 25% in 2008.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response covers the main features of the charts, identifying key trends such as the decline in time spent with family and the shift in sleeping habits. However, the report is incomplete. You failed to mention the 'working' category data for either year, despite noting it was the most preferred activity. Furthermore, the 'other' category is completely ignored. To reach a higher band, you must ensure all data categories are represented and compared. While the overview is present, the lack of comprehensive data coverage prevents a higher score. You should aim to group data more effectively to highlight the most significant changes rather than listing individual percentages.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is logically organized into an introduction, an overview, and two body paragraphs. You use some cohesive devices such as 'On the other hand' and 'Similarly' to link ideas. However, the transition between the overview and the body paragraphs is somewhat mechanical. The referencing is generally clear, but the progression of ideas could be smoother. For instance, the jump between discussing 'relaxing at home' and 'playing sports' feels slightly disjointed. Improving the use of cohesive devices to show contrast or similarity more naturally would enhance the flow of the report.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks variety and precision. You rely on repetitive phrasing such as 'both in 1958 and 2008' and 'remained almost constant'. Phrases like 'sleeping behaviour was confirmed' are slightly unnatural in this context; 'sleeping patterns' would be more appropriate. You attempt some descriptive language with 'significant decline' and 'sharp decline', which is good, but you need to incorporate a wider range of synonyms and more sophisticated collocations to describe trends and data points to move into the higher bands.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are some grammatical inaccuracies, such as 'the ways through which working individuals... have spent their days' (which is wordy and slightly awkward) and 'least days were spent by the persons' (which is grammatically incorrect; 'least time' would be better). While these errors do not impede communication, they are frequent enough to prevent a higher score. To improve, focus on using more varied complex structures and ensure subject-verb agreement and preposition usage are accurate throughout the text.

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

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