Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-09-20

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 line graphs show the percentage of people who had full car driving licences in Great Britain, according to their age and sex.

Overall, men had a higher percentage of driving licence holders than women in most age groups. Also, the percentage generally increased with age at first and then decreased among older people.

Among young people aged 17–20, about 30% of men had a full driving licence, compared with around 20% of women. The percentage was higher for both sexes in the 21–29 age group, at about 60% for men and 50% for women. For people aged 30–39, the figures were approximately 75% for men and 65% for women.

The percentage continued to be high among people aged 40–49 and 50–59. Around 80% of men and 75% of women in these groups had licences. However, the figures fell for people aged 60 and over. In the oldest group, the percentage was about 55% for men and 35% for women.

In general, men were more likely to have driving licences than women, especially among older people.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.5

The student has attempted to summarise the provided visual data, but there is a fundamental flaw in the interpretation of the source charts. The student describes the graphs as showing data according to age and sex at a single point, but the visual data actually compares two different years (1975/76 and 2006) across age groups and sexes. By treating the data as a single snapshot and misinterpreting the core trends over time, the response fails to accurately capture the main features and comparisons. Furthermore, the figures cited do not align correctly with the underlying chart data (for example, reporting 30% for 17-20 year old men when the data shows 36% in 1975/76 and 37% in 2006, and missing the historical dimension entirely). Consequently, Task Achievement is significantly limited by this misreading of the prompt data.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The response has a clear overarching structure with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a brief concluding sentence, showing an attempt at logical organisation. Paragraphing is used reasonably to separate different age brackets. However, the progression is hindered by the faulty data interpretation and lack of clear comparative markers between the two time periods present in the charts. Cohesive devices are basic and repetitive, such as 'Also', 'Among', and 'However'. Referencing is sometimes unclear because the student amalgamates or misrepresents the distinct years into a generalised narrative. Overall, the arrangement provides a coherent flow on the surface, but the underlying logical progression regarding the actual data is flawed.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for the task, successfully using terms related to data reporting and demographics, such as 'percentage', 'age groups', 'licence holders', and 'approximately'. However, the lexical range remains somewhat limited and repetitive, relying heavily on basic phrasing ('the percentage generally increased', 'figures were approximately'). There are no major spelling errors, but the lack of precise vocabulary to describe trends over time (such as 'rose significantly', 'substantially higher') restricts the score. The words used are mostly accurate but fail to showcase a wider flexibility of less common lexical items.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The response displays a reasonable mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as subordinate clauses ('while', 'compared with', 'according to their age'). Grammatical accuracy is fairly high, with many error-free sentences (e.g., 'Among young people aged 17–20, about 30% of men had a full driving licence...'). Punctuation is generally handled well. While the range of complex structures is somewhat limited and repetitive in pattern, the errors are infrequent and do not impede communication at all. Control over simple verb forms and past/present references is mostly sound.

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

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