Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Recent IELTS Exams (Canada & India) · 2026-09-22

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)

he pie chart illustrates the different categories of library users at a university, while the table shows the levels of satisfaction among these users regarding five aspects of the library.

Overall, full-time undergraduates constituted the largest proportion of library users, whereas academic staff represented the smallest group. In terms of satisfaction, the helpfulness of staff received the most positive feedback, while the availability of journals had the highest proportion of dissatisfied users.

Full-time undergraduate students accounted for 44% of library users, making them by far the largest group. Full-time postgraduate students represented 25%, followed by part-time postgraduate students at 16%. Distance-learning students from all courses made up 8%, while academic staff accounted for only 7%.

Regarding satisfaction, 95% of users were very satisfied with the helpfulness of staff, with the remaining 5% being fairly satisfied and none dissatisfied. Library opening hours also received a high level of satisfaction, with 65% very satisfied and 35% fairly satisfied. For the availability of books, half of the users were very satisfied, while 40% were fairly satisfied and 10% were not satisfied.

The availability of journals had comparatively lower satisfaction levels, with 45% very satisfied, 35% fairly satisfied and 20% dissatisfied. Finally, 48% were very satisfied with the reliability of Wi-Fi, compared with 33% fairly satisfied and 19% not satisfied.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 1.0

The candidate has completely misunderstood the prompt. The task required an analysis of two pie charts showing how working adults spent their time in 1958 and 2008. Instead, the response describes an entirely different topic involving university library users and satisfaction levels with library facilities. Because the student has written about the wrong visual data entirely, the response fails to address the prompt's core requirements. There is no attempt to report the main features or comparisons of the actual source text provided in the instructions, which results in a severe failure in task completion.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

Despite being completely off-topic for the prompt, the text itself is internally well-structured. The writer uses clear paragraphing, dividing the introduction, overview, and specific details about users and satisfaction logically. Cohesive devices such as 'whereas', 'in terms of', 'regarding satisfaction', and 'finally' are used effectively to guide the reader through the data points. There is a clear overall progression within the fabricated context, demonstrating that the writer understands how to structure an academic task one response, even though the content is completely irrelevant to the actual prompt.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.5

The vocabulary used in the response is well-suited to describing statistical and survey data in an academic context. The candidate successfully employs appropriate lexical items such as 'constituted the largest proportion', 'satisfaction levels', 'proportion of dissatisfied users', and 'reliability of Wi-Fi'. Word choices are generally precise and natural for report-style writing, showing an adequate to good range of vocabulary. However, because the task prompt was ignored, the lexis cannot be credited towards the specific subject matter required by the task.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 7.0

The response demonstrates good grammatical control and a solid variety of sentence structures. The candidate successfully constructs complex sentences using subordinate clauses and participial phrases, such as 'making them by far the largest group' and 'with the remaining 5% being fairly satisfied and none dissatisfied.' Grammatical accuracy is high, with accurate control over subject-verb agreement, tense consistency, and punctuation throughout the text. The majority of sentences are error-free, reflecting a level of grammatical competence that would typically score well if applied to the correct task.

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

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