Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-22

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 5.5)

The table illustrates the growth in the total number people residing in the five districts of United States of American namely Manhatten, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Staten Island over the course of two centuries.

Overall, there has been a dramatic increase in the population in all the districts mentioned. Historically, the district of Manhatten made up the majority of the population of New York but over time, other districts came to consitute the largest section. By the year 2000,New York City has seen a thousand fold increase in the population from 1800.

The population of New York stood at 79,216 in 1800 which rose significantly to about 8 million by 2000. The district of Manhatten which used to constitute the majority proportion of the population of New York in 1800 at 60,515 saw a dramatic growth to a peak of 1.8 million in 1900 but slighlty declined to 1.5 million by the end of the period. As for the other districts, the population exploded from 18,701 in 1800 to hit a high of about 6.4 million in 1900.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The student addresses the main features of the task well, providing an overview and supporting data from the tables. However, there is a minor factual inaccuracy in the body paragraph regarding the final data point: the student states that the population of 'the other districts' hit a high of 6.4 million in 1900, whereas the table shows 6,471,089 was the figure for 2000, not 1900. Additionally, the overview contains a slight overstatement ('thousand fold increase'). Despite these errors, the response covers all parts of the prompt well and attempts to make relevant comparisons, placing it squarely in Band 6.5 to 7.0 territory.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The response is clearly organised into an introduction, an overview paragraph, and a body paragraph. Cohesive devices such as 'Overall', 'Historically', 'By the year 2000', and 'As for the other districts' are used to guide the reader through the data. Paragraphing is appropriate, though the body paragraph could have been split into two to separate Manhattan from the other districts for better logical flow. Referencing is mostly clear, contributing to an overall coherent arrangement.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for the task, attempting less common phrases such as 'dramatic increase', 'majority proportion', and 'population exploded'. However, there are several spelling and word-choice errors, including 'number people' (missing 'of'), 'United States of American', 'Manhatten' (consistently misspelled), 'consitute' (instead of constitute), and 'slighlty'. These errors do not impede communication but prevent the score from reaching a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The student employs a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and time markers effectively (e.g., 'The district of Manhattan which used to constitute...'). There are some grammatical errors, such as missing articles ('the population of New York has seen a thousand fold increase') and punctuation issues (missing comma after introductory elements, comma splice before 'New York City'). However, the majority of sentences are clear, and the errors rarely impede overall communication.

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

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