Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-09-13
IELTS Writing Task 1 question
The graph below gives information on the numbers of participants for different activities at one social centre in Melbourne, Australia for the period 2000 to 2020.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Student answer (Band 5.5)
The chart presented here is a strong evidence of increase number of participants across to decades. Almost all of the activities has seen an significant increase in the number of participants. Starting from Film club, although it had a quite good amount of participants from the start, but the number of participants remained more or less same i.e., lying between 60 to 70.
The same is the case for martial arts, the charts indicates a pretty straight trend across 20 years. The number of particiapants remained almost same with a minor fluctuation which keeps in the same bracket (30 to 40).
on the other side, the activity which was seen the most decline is the amatuer dramatics, although it started with a very low amoung of the candidates. starting from around 25 participants in 2000, the amateur dramatics has fallen further down to 10 particpants by the year 2020.
The table tennis has seen a enormous growth in these two decades. based on illustration there were around 20-25 players for table tennis, but in the latest year the numbers has increased crossing 50 participants in 2020.
lastly, the participants started to take interest in musical performance from 2005 which increased to around 25 in 2025.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The response covers the main features of the graph, identifying key trends such as the stability of film club and martial arts participation, the decline in amateur dramatics, and the growth in table tennis. However, there are some inaccuracies and oddities in data reporting, such as claiming that musical performance increased to 25 in 2025 (which exceeds the timeline and data provided in the prompt) and stating that table tennis crossed 50 participants when the endpoint is around 40-45. Additionally, the overview is somewhat superficial and lacks a synthesized summary of the overall trends. Consequently, the response satisfies the requirements for a Band 5.5 to 6.0 level of task fulfillment.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The text is organized into paragraphs corresponding roughly to different activities, which provides a coherent overall arrangement. However, logical progression is sometimes hindered by abrupt transitions and faulty cohesive devices, such as starting paragraphs with 'on the other side' and lowercase 'on the other side'. Referencing is occasionally unclear, and paragraphing could be improved to better group related trends together rather than treating every activity in a disjointed fashion. Discourse markers are used mechanically, keeping this criterion at a Band 5.5.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The student attempts a range of vocabulary appropriate for a graph summary, including words like 'participants', 'fluctuation', 'growth', and 'decline'. However, there are numerous lexical and spelling errors throughout the text, such as 'increase number' instead of 'increased number', 'across to decades' instead of 'across two decades', 'an significant increase', 'amatuar dramatics', and 'enormous growth'. These errors demonstrate a limited control over word choice and collocation, resulting in a Band 5.5 rating for lexical resource.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The response includes a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but grammatical accuracy is quite weak. Frequent errors include subject-verb agreement issues ('Almost all of the activities has seen'), article misuse ('is a strong evidence', 'the table tennis has seen'), prepositional errors ('across to decades'), and tense inconsistencies. While these errors rarely completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to prevent the writing from reaching the Band 6 descriptor, which requires a reliable mix of error-free sentences.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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