Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.0 · Recent IELTS Exams (Canada & India) · 2026-11-02

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 4.0)

The pie charts below compare how working adults in a particular country spent their time in 1958 and 2008.

Overall, these pie charts show that people spent their most of the time in working and sleeping while on other activities like relaxing at home, travelling to work, going out with friends or family and on playing sports.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 3.0

You identify the subject and years, and your overview correctly notes that work and sleep were major uses of time. However, the response does not report any figures or meaningful changes between the charts, such as work rising from 33% to 42%, sleep falling from 32% to 25%, or socialising dropping from 19% to 6%. It also mentions playing sports without explaining that this appears only in 2008. The response is only 43 words, so it falls 107 words short of the 150-word minimum; 14 words copied from the prompt were excluded from the count. This very limited coverage means the main features are not adequately summarised. Add a clear overview and select several key comparisons with accurate percentages.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

The response has a basic sequence: it introduces the charts and then gives an overall statement. The opening sentence makes the topic and time periods clear, and “Overall” signals the overview. However, there is no developed body paragraph, so the reader is not guided through comparisons or supporting details. The second sentence also groups several activities together without explaining how they differ across the years, leaving the information difficult to follow as a summary. To improve the organisation, use a short introduction, an overview of the main changes, and one or two body paragraphs that group related figures—for example, work and sleep, then leisure and travel.

Lexical Resource: Band 4.5

You use relevant basic vocabulary, including “pie charts,” “working adults,” “sleeping,” and “travelling to work,” so the topic is generally understandable. The range is nevertheless narrow, and the response relies on a list of activity labels rather than language for describing proportions and change. The phrase “spent their most of the time” is an inaccurate construction, and “other activities like” is informal and imprecise for an academic summary. Use terms such as “accounted for,” “increased,” “declined,” and “proportion” to report the data more precisely. A wider set of accurate chart-description expressions would make the limited information more effective and appropriate to the task.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

Your two sentences are understandable, and the first sentence uses a straightforward comparative structure to introduce the charts. However, the response shows little grammatical range, with no developed sentences comparing the two years. There is also an error in “spent their most of the time”: the possessive “their” does not belong before “most” in this construction. The list in the overview is awkwardly connected, particularly “and on playing sports,” and the sentence does not clearly distinguish activities that appear in both years from one that appears only in 2008. Practise accurate comparative clauses, such as “the share spent working rose, whereas the proportion sleeping fell,” and check articles, prepositions, and parallel structure.

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

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