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 tables illustrate the information about the population changes of New York city and the five districts of the city (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Staten Island) between 1800 to 2000.

Overall, the New York city had the highest proportion of population. While Manhattan recorded the lowest percentage of population as compared to other districts.

In 1800, the population of people in Manhattan was 60,515 with around 76%. And the total population of people in New York city was 79,216. In the next year, the size of the population doubled with the number of 1,850,093 in Manhattan with around 54% but in other districts the numbers were quite low with around 46%, which was around 8% less than the Manhattan. The total population of people in New York city increased to 3,437,202.

In 2000, the number of population reduced to 1,538,096 with around 19%. While other districts recorded the largest amount of proportion with around 81% and the number rose to 6,471,089. The size of total population reached to 8,009,185, which was the highest among previous years.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The student covers the main parts of the task by reporting data for New York City, Manhattan, and the combined other districts across the three selected years. Key comparisons are made, such as contrasting the high proportion in Manhattan in 1800 with its decline by 2000. However, the overview is flawed and inaccurate; the statement that 'New York city had the highest proportion of population' is nonsensical in this context, as the city total is the sum of its parts, not a district proportion. Furthermore, there are minor inaccuracies in data reporting, such as stating 'In the next year' when referring to 1900 (a gap of a century), and describing the population doubling between 1800 and 1900 when it actually grew exponentially from roughly 60,000 to 1.8 million in Manhattan. Therefore, ideas are somewhat under-developed and contain inaccuracies.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The response is organized into four paragraphs, following a logical introduction, overview, and body paragraph structure for each time period. Cohesive devices are used to link ideas, such as 'While', 'In 1800', and 'In 2000'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical. For example, 'In the next year' is used to introduce 1900 after discussing 1800, which is logically confusing and disrupts the temporal progression. Additionally, the transition between sentences within paragraphs can feel disjointed due to repetitive sentence openings and awkward phrasing like 'And the total population...'. Paragraphing is present, but overall progression is hindered by these cohesion and logic lapses.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, allowing the student to report numbers, percentages, and basic trends such as 'increased', 'reduced', and 'rose'. However, there are notable word choice and collocation errors throughout the text, such as 'the number of population' instead of 'the population size', 'largest amount of proportion' instead of 'largest proportion', and referring to a century jump as 'the next year'. Attempts to use less common vocabulary result in awkward or unnatural expressions. Spelling is generally accurate, but lexical control is limited, placing the response firmly in the band 5 range.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and contrastive structures (e.g., 'While Manhattan recorded the lowest percentage...'). However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are several errors in article usage, prepositional phrases, and tense consistency, such as 'New York city had' (missing article), 'the population of people in Manhattan was' (wordy and unnatural), and mixing up timelines. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they occur frequently enough to lower the overall grammatical score. Complex structures are often attempted rather than fully controlled.

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

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