Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Recent IELTS Exams (Canada & India) · 2026-09-28
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 5.5)
The pie charts give the information about the percentage of spending time by workers in mutlifarious activites in a particular nation in 1958 and 2008.
In 1958, adults spent their minimal time in travelling to work at 2%. Interestingly, working and sleeping activities were more demanding among the workers which accounted for 33%. There were only 8% of time which they spend on relaxing at home halved from goving out with family and friends.
In 2008, individuals spend maximum time in working at 42%,while going out with friends and family were on minimum ratio of 6%. Similar proportion of activities dome by adults were playing sports and travelling to work at 7%. Workers spend 25% and 13% of time in sleeping and relaxing at home respectively.
Overall, highest proportion of time consumed by adults in working and sleeping, whereas less time spend in travelling and playing.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 6.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5
The student attempts to cover all parts of the task by reporting the main features of the pie charts for both years, including working, sleeping, relaxing, travelling, and socializing. However, there are a few inaccuracies in data reporting. For instance, the student states that adults spent 33% on working and sleeping combined in 1958, whereas the chart shows working at 33% and sleeping at 32% separately. Furthermore, the response falls short of the 150-word minimum, containing only 146 words, which results in a penalty under Task Achievement descriptors for failing to fully satisfy the minimum word count requirement.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0
The response is organized into four paragraphs, following a logical structure with an introduction, two body paragraphs detailing each year, and a brief overall summary. Cohesive devices are used to link ideas, such as 'In 1958', 'Interestingly', and 'In 2008'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical, as seen in awkward transitions like 'halved from goving out with family and friends' and 'Similar proportion of activities dome by adults were'. Paragraphing is present, but overall progression and logical flow are occasionally disrupted by clunky phrasing.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common terms such as 'multifarious', 'demanding', and 'proportion'. However, there are several lexical errors and inappropriate word choices, such as 'percentage of spending time by workers in mutlifarious activites' (instead of 'spent on multifarious activities'), 'minimal time in travelling' (instead of 'minimum time'), and spelling errors like 'mutlifarious' and 'goving'. These errors do not completely impede communication but prevent the score from reaching a higher band.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating introductory prepositional phrases and relative clauses. However, grammatical accuracy is weak, with frequent errors including tense inconsistencies and prepositions ('spending time by workers', 'time which they spend', 'ratio of 6%', 'time consumed by adults in working'). There are also awkward passive/active confusions such as 'Similar proportion of activities dome by adults were playing sports'. These errors require some effort to decode and occur regularly throughout the response.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
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