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 charts below give information about a public library in a town called Little Chalfont.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The charts illustrate data about a public library in atown called Little Chalfont. Overall, the more than half number of members by 2016 were adults between the age 18-64 years and least number of member were adults 65 and over. There were seven categories for loans where children's fiction and adult fiction remained at top while children's DVD's remained at bottom.

To begin with, loans taken by members have different proportion for different categories where children's fiction and adult fiction have highest proportion at 38 percent. While children's DVD's at lowest position at 1 percent. Similarly, Young adults and adult audio books stood at 2 percent. Additionally, adult non-fiction stood at second position with 13 percent by year 2016.

Moreover, Library had most number of loans by year 2016 which was around 22,000 while the least number of loans during the year 16,000. The number fluctuated between 16,000 to 22,000 loans over the period.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response covers all three visual elements provided in the task prompt: the age distribution of members, the loan categories, and the trend in total loans from 2007 to 2016. An overview is present in the first paragraph, noting key features such as the dominance of adults aged 18-64 and the popularity of fiction categories. However, the data points selected contain some inaccuracies. For instance, the lowest number of loans on the time graph actually occurred in 2007 at around 15,700, rather than the student's assertion of 16,000 as the absolute minimum, and the phrasing around numbers is slightly imprecise. Nevertheless, the main trends and proportions are adequately reported, satisfying the core requirements of Task Achievement at this level.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is divided into three paragraphs, providing a logical framework with an introduction, a body paragraph focusing on loan categories, and a final paragraph addressing membership trends or loan totals. Cohesive devices such as 'To begin with', 'While', and 'Moreover' are used to structure the text, though some transitions feel a bit mechanical or imprecise in context. Paragraphing is generally appropriate, and the overall progression is clear enough to follow the writer's argument, even if referencing and sentence-level linking occasionally lack seamless fluidity.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student attempts a range of vocabulary relevant to the visual data, including terms like 'proportion', 'category', 'fluctuated', and 'fiction'. However, there are noticeable limitations and awkward collocations, such as 'the more than half number of members' and 'remained at top' instead of 'remained at the top'. Word choice errors and missing articles ('Library had most number of loans') occasionally disrupt the natural flow of the writing, restricting the score to a 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as 'While children's DVD's at lowest position at 1 percent' (which suffers from a missing verb) and 'The number fluctuated between 16,000 to 22,000 loans over the period.' Grammatical errors are frequent enough to draw attention—notably missing prepositions, articles, and verbs (e.g., 'in atown', 'least number of member'). While these errors rarely impede overall comprehension, they prevent the text from achieving a higher band score due to a lack of consistent grammatical control in complex structures.

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

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