Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-09-30

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The bar chart shows the typical weekday for students in three different countries.

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The bar chart illustrates the information about typical weekday for students in UK, Japan and Germany.

Overall, Japanese students studied the highest while they had the lowest days for relaxing and sleeping among three countries. German students had the second-highest studying days while having an equal number of sleeping days as UK students.

Japan recorded the highest studying days between three countries in a typical weekday for students at 13 days while they recorded the lowest relaxing days for students at 4 days. Japanese students also had the lowest sleeping days recorded at 7 days.

Germany recorded the second-highest number of both studying days and sleeping days at 9 and 8 days respectively while they recorded the same number of days for relaxing as the UK students at 7 days. UK recorded the lowest number of studying days at 8 while they recorded 8.5 days for sleeping, the second-highest among the three countries.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The student attempts to summarise the main features of the bar chart, covering sleeping, studying, and relaxing times across the UK, Japan, and Germany. However, there is a significant data misinterpretation throughout the response: the student consistently refers to the hours as "days" (e.g., "Japanese students studied the highest while they had the lowest days for relaxing and sleeping"), which distorts the accuracy of the data. Despite this major unit error, an overview is provided and comparisons are made. Because the core data units are fundamentally misunderstood as days rather than hours, the response cannot achieve above Band 5.0 for this criterion.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response is structured with an introduction, an overview, and separate body paragraphs for Japan and Germany/UK. Cohesive devices are used to link ideas, such as "Overall," "while," and "respectively." Paragraphing is used logically to group information by country. However, the progression is somewhat repetitive, and referencing is occasionally mechanical. While the logical organization is clear, the pervasive misuse of "days" instead of hours slightly detracts from the smooth flow of information. Overall, the coherence meets the requirements for a Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is generally adequate for the task, with terms like "illustrates," "highest," "lowest," and "respectively." However, the severe lexical error of substituting "hours" with "days" throughout the essay severely limits the accuracy of the lexical resource. There is little demonstration of less common vocabulary or stylistic flexibility, and the repetition of basic phrases like "recorded the highest/lowest" keeps the lexical score constrained. This performance aligns best with Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing subordinating clauses such as "while they had the lowest..." and relative or comparative structures. There are several grammatical lapses, including awkward phrasing and article omissions, such as "students in UK" instead of "students in the UK." While the sentence structures demonstrate some variety, the frequency of awkward phrasing and the persistent misinterpretation of the data units keep the grammatical and communicative accuracy at a Band 5.5 level.

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

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