Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Recent IELTS Exams (Canada & India) · 2026-10-03

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 compares how adults doing a job in a specific country spent their time in 1958 and 2008.

Overall, the daily routine of workers have changed in 2008 as compared to 1958. In 1958 working time contributed more while time consumed by travelling to was the least, Furthermore, in 2008 working hours is still the most consuming part while going out with friends and families remained behind of all.

In 1958, people usually spent 33% of their time in working followed by 32% of sleeping hour. Moreover, going out with friend and families have a percentage of 19% higher than the 6% in 2008. While relaxing at home and travelling to work remained at 8% and 2% making it the least working activity by percentage.

Meanwhile, in 2008 the working hours increased to 42%. In contrast, sleeping reduced to 25%. However the relaxing at home have increased from 8% to 13% as well as travelling to work also experienced a little rise from 2% to 7% followed by playing sports. Additionally, going out with friend and family have faced a dramatic decrease falling from 19% to 6%.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the prompt by presenting an overview and reporting key features from the two pie charts. The student successfully selects main activities like working and sleeping and makes relevant comparisons between 1958 and 2008. For instance, the student correctly notes that working hours increased from 33% to 42% while sleeping decreased from 32% to 25%. However, some ideas are under-developed or contain inaccuracies; the text states that 'in 1958 working time contributed more while time consumed by travelling to was the least', but travelling actually accounted for 2% in 1958 while playing sports was absent entirely, and the description of the 1958 going out percentage is slightly confused with the 2008 data. Furthermore, 8 words copied from the prompt were excluded from the official word count, leaving the student safely above the minimum length requirement.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response exhibits a coherent overall arrangement with a clear logical progression from an introductory statement to an overview, followed by body paragraphs detailing the specific data for each year. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate the introduction, overview, and individual chart analyses. Cohesive devices are employed to structure the response, such as 'Overall', 'In 1958', and 'Meanwhile, in 2008'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes mechanical or faulty, as seen in awkward transitional phrases like 'making it the least working activity by percentage' and some loose links between sentences. To reach a higher band, the student should ensure that cohesive relationships between sentences are smoother and that referencing devices are managed with greater precision.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, providing a sufficient range of terms to describe statistical data, such as 'percentage', 'decreased', 'increased', and 'dramatic decrease'. The writer attempts less common vocabulary, though this is sometimes accompanied by word choice and collocation inaccuracies, such as 'time consumed by travelling to was the least' instead of 'time spent travelling was the lowest', and 'working hours is still the most consuming part'. There are also minor slips in word forms, such as 'sleeping hour' instead of 'sleeping hours'. While these lexical errors and minor spelling or word-choice issues do not impede communication, they restrict the score to this level. To improve, the student should focus on precise collocations and more natural phrasing when describing data trends.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing structures like relative clauses and comparative constructions. There are, however, some errors in grammar and punctuation throughout the text. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues ('the daily routine of workers have changed', 'going out with friend and families have a percentage'), missing words in prepositional phrases ('travelling to'), and incorrect verb forms ('working hours is still the most consuming part'). Despite these errors in grammar and punctuation, the meaning is generally clear and they rarely impede communication. To achieve a higher band, the student needs to produce a greater proportion of error-free sentences and demonstrate better control over complex grammatical patterns, particularly subject-verb agreement and article usage.

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

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