Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Recent IELTS Exams (Canada & India) · 2026-09-29

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 5.5)

The pie charts illustrate the breakdown in percentages of the day spent of working youngsters in a specific country in year 1958 and 2008. At a glance, working reflected for the highest time spent of working adults in both years. while, the travelling to work had shown the least percentage in 1958, which increased notably and changed its position.

Firstly, working was the biggest contributer in the day spent of working youngsters 33% in 1958, which was increased by 9% in 2008. After that, sleeping and relaxing at home illustrated almost similar percentage of growth throughout the gap which was 32% and 8% respectively in 1958 , and rose by 7% and 5%. Similarly, the contribution of travelling to work in a day spent of working adult accounted for 2% in 1958. In 2008, the contribution of travelling to work had increased to 7%. in 1958 going out with friends and family shown 19% contribution, which was decresed in 2008 noted 6%.

Overall, playing sports is the only activity which remained same throughout given time period.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The student attempts to address the prompt by reporting key features from both pie charts, mentioning working, sleeping, travelling to work, and relaxing at home. However, there are several inaccuracies in data interpretation. For instance, the student states that 'playing sports is the only activity which remained same throughout given time period', which is incorrect as playing sports is entirely absent in the 1958 chart and accounts for 7% in 2008. Furthermore, the calculations or descriptions of change (e.g., 'was increased by 9% in 2008' where working actually rose from 33% to 42%, making a 9 percentage point increase, but phrasing can be confusing) show a lack of precise overview. The response does meet the word count requirement, but the data reporting contains factual errors regarding the visual information provided. Therefore, a Band 5.5 is appropriate for partial task achievement and some inaccurate data reporting.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response is organised into multiple paragraphs, including an introduction, body paragraphs, and a brief concluding sentence. Cohesive devices such as 'Firstly', 'After that', 'Similarly', and 'Overall' are employed to signal transitions between ideas. However, paragraphing and referencing are occasionally awkward, such as the sudden short concluding sentence about playing sports standing alone. Punctuation and sentence boundaries occasionally fail, such as starting a sentence with a lowercase letter ('in 2008 going out...') and missing periods. Overall arrangement is coherent enough to follow the general trajectory of the data, but cohesion can be mechanical and occasionally faulty. This places the response comfortably at Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, attempting words like 'breakdown', 'contributor', and 'accounted for'. However, there are noticeable lexical inaccuracies and awkward collocations, such as 'working youngsters' instead of 'working adults', 'time spent of working adults', and spelling errors like 'decresed' instead of 'decreased'. The range of vocabulary is somewhat limited and repetitive, relying heavily on basic terms to describe percentages and changes. While communication is not severely impeded, the frequency of word-choice errors and unnatural phrasing prevents the response from reaching Band 6.0, making Band 5.5 a fair descriptor.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including relative clauses and passive/active constructions (e.g., 'which increased notably and changed its position', 'working was the biggest contributer... which was increased by 9%'). However, grammatical accuracy is weak, featuring frequent errors such as tense inconsistencies, incorrect prepositions ('spent of working adults' instead of 'spent by'), missing capitalization, and awkward phrasing ('had shown the least percentage', 'noted 6%'). Complex structures frequently contain errors or awkward phrasing. These frequent errors occasionally cause difficulty for the reader, aligning the response with Band 5.0.

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

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