Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.0 · IELTS Academic Practice Accelerator · 2026-10-06

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 4.0)

The bar chart illustrates that how students from three different countries spend their day.

Overall, you can see that Japanese students spend most of their time studying the courses whereas this proportion is much lower in UK. Similarly, UK students prioritize sleeping than Japanese students.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 3.0

The response is severely penalised because it fails to meet the minimum word count requirement of 150 words, containing only 45 words. Furthermore, the task is only partially addressed. While the student attempts an overview and mentions a couple of general trends—such as Japanese students spending the most time studying compared to the UK, and UK students prioritizing sleeping—the response lacks sufficient detail, omits Germany entirely, and fails to report specific data figures or make comprehensive comparisons as required by the prompt.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.5

The response shows some basic organization with a clear introductory sentence and an overall summary marker. However, the overall arrangement is very brief and lacks a proper body of supporting details. Cohesive devices are minimal, relying only on simple transitions like 'Overall' and 'Similarly'. Paragraphing is also inadequate due to the extreme brevity of the text, preventing any clear logical progression or smooth flow of ideas throughout the response.

Lexical Resource: Band 4.5

The vocabulary used is minimally adequate for the task, featuring basic terms such as 'spend', 'time', 'studying', and 'proportion'. There is an attempt to use slightly less common vocabulary like 'prioritize', but the student makes an awkward collocation error by writing 'prioritize sleeping than' instead of 'prioritize sleeping over'. Spelling is generally accurate, but the limited range of lexical items and occasional clumsy word choices restrict the overall quality of the writing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

The student demonstrates a limited range of sentence structures, primarily relying on simple and basic complex forms. There is a notable grammatical error in the opening sentence with the inclusion of an unnecessary 'that' after the verb illustrates ('illustrates that how'), which disrupts the structure. While other basic clauses are grammatically controlled, the frequent reliance on simple phrasing and the structural slip prevent the writing from achieving a higher level of accuracy and variety.

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

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