Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-09-30

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 graphs illustrates the proportion of people holding full driving licences in Great Britian, classified by age and sex of the years 1975/76 and 2006.

Overall, it is evident that males dominate heavily at every age group in both the years. In the year 1975/76, females accounted for fewer share of holding licences. There is a significant increase of people holding licences over 70 of both sexes.

To begin with, both the genders having licence striked a peak in the age bracket of 40-49 with 95 percent for male and 89 percent for female in the year 2006. The lowest trough for males was in the age brakcet of 17-20 with slightly less than 40 percent whereas for the females, the least was in the age bracket of 70 and above with roughly 30 percent licence holders.

On the other hand, in 1975/76, both sexes experienced peak at age bracket of 30-39 of marginally higher than 80 percent for males and around 50 percent for females. Both the sexes who hold licence saw a steep fall at age bracket of 70 and over, around 36 percent for mens and less than 5 percent of womens

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The student attempts to cover the main features of the chart, providing an overview and selecting data points from both years. However, there are several inaccurate data citations that undermine task fulfillment. For instance, the student states that in 2006, licence holders peaked at '95 percent for male and 89 percent for female' in the 40-49 age bracket, whereas the chart shows around 89% for males (40-49) and 92% for 50-59. Furthermore, some comparisons lack precision, and the overview asserts that 'males dominate heavily at every age group', which is broadly true but overlooks the nuances of how the gap narrowed significantly by 2006, especially in younger and middle age groups. Consequently, the response achieves a Band 5.5 for addressing the task partially with some inaccurate reporting of figures.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response is organized into four paragraphs, including an introduction, an overview, and two body paragraphs detailing the data. There is an attempt at logical progression; however, cohesive devices are sometimes faulty or mechanical. For example, transitioning phrases like 'To begin with' and 'On the other hand' are not used entirely logically to contrast the two time periods, as the second body paragraph discusses 2006 and the final paragraph jumps back to 1975/76. Paragraphing is present, but internal referencing is occasionally unclear ('both the genders having licence striked'). These issues place the response firmly in the Band 6 category.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student displays an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common terms such as 'proportion', 'dominate heavily', 'significant increase', and 'trough'. However, there are several word choice and collocation errors, such as 'fewer share of holding licences', 'genders having licence striked a peak', and 'mens' / 'womens' instead of 'men' / 'women'. Spelling errors like 'Britian' and typographical issues ('brakcet') also occur. These errors do not completely impede communication, aligning the response with Band 5.5 to 6.0, best represented by Band 6.0 given the functional range demonstrated.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as participial clauses ('classified by age and sex') and subordinate clauses ('whereas for the females, the least was...'). However, there is a noticeable frequency of grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement issues ('The bar graphs illustrates'), awkward phrasing ('both the sexes who hold licence saw'), and incorrect pluralisation ('mens', 'womens'). While these errors do not fully obscure the meaning, they cause some difficulty for the reader and prevent the response from reaching Band 6.5, keeping it at a Band 5.5.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.