Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 4.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-18
IELTS Writing Task 1 question
The first table below shows changes in the total population of New York City from 1800 to 2000. The second and third tables show changes in the population of the five districts of the city (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Staten Island) over the same period.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Student answer (Band 4.0)
A report on the change in population in the all the five district in New York City in the year 1800 to 2000.
The first table shows the general population of all the five distrist.In the year 1800 the population were small as compare to the coming years. In 1900 the population rise abut twice the previous year . in 2000 the population slightly increase.
In Manhattam the percentage of the total population drop dramatically from 1800 to 2000.
( 76%,54%,19%)
With the other districts,the expricences massively growth in population from 1800 to 2000. Ths grow in population in these four districts significantly affected the total population of the New York City.
Manthanttam district didnt has any noticable impact in the city as the rest did.
Hence, Manhattam population decline whiles the rst of the other city increases.
showin overall poluations of New York City wth pver 6 million people.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 4.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 4.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 4.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 4.0 |
| Overall | 4.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.5
The response attempts to address the prompt by reporting on the total population and district breakdowns, but it suffers from severe limitations in content, data interpretation, and formatting. The student includes raw parenthetical figures rather than fully integrating them into sentences, and there are factual inaccuracies, such as stating the population 'slightly increase' in 2000 when it more than doubled from 1900 to 2000. Furthermore, the overview is extremely fragmented and lacks a clear, cohesive summary of the main trends. Important comparative data between Manhattan and the other districts is only partially explored, resulting in an underdeveloped response that meets the minimum length requirement by the narrowest of margins but fails to cover the task adequately.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 4.0
The text lacks clear overall progression and logical paragraphing. The response is broken down into numerous single-sentence fragments rather than fully developed paragraphs, making the progression choppy and difficult to follow. Cohesive devices are either missing or misused, such as the abrupt transition 'Hence' at the end, which does not logically introduce the concluding thought. Reference pronouns and referencing links are frequently unclear or absent, meaning the relationship between ideas across sentences is often opaque. Overall arrangement is disjointed, and the chaotic formatting—including orphan bullet-like lists in parentheses—significantly undermines the structural integrity of the report.
Lexical Resource — Band 4.0
The lexical range is extremely limited and repetitive throughout the response. The student relies on basic, elementary vocabulary such as 'small', 'rise', 'drop', and 'growth', and commits numerous word-form and spelling errors, including 'distrist', 'expricences', 'Ths', 'Manhanttam', 'whiles', 'rst', 'showin', 'poluations', and 'wth'. There is an inability to control less common vocabulary, and collocation attempts fail entirely. While the vocabulary is sufficient to convey a very rudimentary topic, the frequency of errors in spelling and word choice causes considerable strain and confusion for the reader.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.0
Grammatical control is weak, with a very limited range of sentence structures and persistent, fundamental errors. The student struggles with basic subject-verb agreement and tense consistency, as seen in phrases like 'the population were small', 'the population rise abut twice', and 'didnt has any noticable impact'. Simple sentences dominate, and attempts at more complex constructions break down due to severe syntactic errors and punctuation failures, including dangling orphan parenthetical data. Errors occur in almost every sentence, frequently impeding communication and meaning.
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