Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-08-15

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The graphs below show the percentage of people holding full driving licences in Great Britain by age and sex.

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

Full car driving licence holders: by sex and age

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The bar graph compares the percentage of people holding full driving licenses in Great Britian according to age and gender.

Overall, license holder men are more than women in both years. However, there were more middle-age license owners than the younger or older generation in both sex.

In 1975/76, about 85% men who have license were from the age group 30-39, which started decreasing as the male community grow older. Similarly, the highest number of population of license holders' women were between the age of 30-39, which is approximately 50%. Meanwhile, in both genders, least number of license holder were from the age group 70 and over, that is almost 5% females and nearly 30% males.

In 2006, the percentage of licence holders had increased among most age groups, particularly women. 90% of the men from the age group of 50-59 were license holder. In the contrast, 80% of the female population between the age of 40-49 had full driving licence. There is a decline in the number of driver license holders as you move from the middle to either sides of age for both genders.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response covers the main features of the graphs, including the gender gap and age-related trends. However, there are some inaccuracies in data reporting. For instance, you state that in 1975/76, 85% of men aged 30-39 held a license, whereas the graph shows this figure closer to 80%. Additionally, the claim that 90% of men aged 50-59 held a license in 2006 is inaccurate, as the peak for that year is clearly in the 40-49 age group. While the overall trends are identified, more precision in citing the data points is required to reach a higher band.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organized into logical paragraphs, with an introduction, an overview, and two body paragraphs focusing on the two time periods. Cohesive devices such as 'In 1975/76', 'Similarly', and 'In the contrast' are used to link ideas. However, some transitions are slightly mechanical or awkward, such as 'In the contrast', which should be 'In contrast'. The progression of ideas is generally clear, but the referencing of data could be smoother to improve the flow between sentences.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, using terms like 'percentage', 'gender', 'population', and 'decline'. However, there are several word-choice errors and awkward phrasings, such as 'license holder men' instead of 'male license holders' and 'both sex' instead of 'both genders'. The phrase 'middle to either sides of age' is also imprecise. To improve, focus on using more natural collocations and ensuring that nouns and adjectives are used correctly in context.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The essay uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with articles ('the age group of 50-59'), subject-verb agreement ('least number of license holder were'), and pluralization ('license holder men'). While these errors do not prevent the reader from understanding your meaning, they occur frequently enough to impact the overall fluency of the text. Increasing your control over basic grammar and punctuation will help improve your score.

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

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