Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Recent IELTS Exams (Canada & India) · 2026-09-15

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 5.0)

The provided pie charts illustrate the proportion of each day spent in quotidian activities working-class individuals over a 50-year period from 1958 to 2008.

Overall, it is readily apparent that adolescents allocated their substantial amount of time in sleeping and working. although sleeping time, spending time with peers was declined considerably. However, working, commuting to work and relaxing in domicile fundamentally increased.

In 1958, youngsters allocated their predominant time in working at 33%, which rose significantly to 42%. Followed by, napping dropped from 32% in 1958 and to 25% by 2008. In addition, 8% and 2% of young people spent their time in relaxing and commuting to work in 1958, rising to 13% 7% by 2008, respectively. A notable exception is that, playing sports activities constituted the same amount of time alloction from young people, thruoghout the period.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response covers the main features of the two pie charts, noting key changes such as the rise in working and the decrease in sleeping, alongside other activities. However, the student mislabels the demographic consistently as "adolescents" or "young people" rather than "working adults," which impacts accuracy. Furthermore, the length requirement is not met, as the response contains only 138 words against the 150-word minimum. This under-length results in a penalty to Task Achievement, leading to a band score of 5.5.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay has a basic structure with an introduction, an overview, and body details, but paragraphing is poorly executed, with sentences floating awkwardly. Cohesive devices are sometimes inaccurate or awkward, such as starting a sentence with "although sleeping time, spending time with peers was declined considerably." Referencing is also problematic, as seen in the confusing contrast between clauses. Overall progression is hindered by these structural and cohesive flaws, placing the response at a band 5.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student attempts some ambitious vocabulary, such as "quotidian" and "domicile," but these are misused or unnatural in context (e.g., "relaxing in domicile" or using "quotidian activities working-class individuals"). There are also awkward word choices and phrasing like "amount of time alloction from young people, thruoghout." While an adequate range is attempted, noticeable errors in word choice and spelling ("thruoghout") pull the lexical score to a 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The text contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but many complex attempts are flawed by grammatical errors or missing connectors, such as "although sleeping time, spending time with peers was declined considerably." There are frequent errors in prepositions, verb forms, and sentence fragments or run-ons (e.g., "rising to 13% 7% by 2008, respectively"). These errors cause some difficulty for the reader, fitting the descriptor for band 5.0.

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

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