Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Summit Mastery · 2026-09-16

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The graph below shows the perceived danger and actual likelihood of being a victim of crime.

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

Perceived and actual likelihood of being a victim of crime: by crime type

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The bar chart compares public perception with the actual risk of becoming a victim of crimes in three categories which include burglary, car crime and violent crime over two consecutive periods 2009/2010 and 2010/2011. Between the two period, perception of crime declined while actual misconduct remained constant increased slightly.

Overall, in all three types of crime perception of crime far exceeded actual rates in both timeframe. car offence recorded the highest ratio in both perception and actual whereas burglary experienced the lowest actual crime rate in both time frame 2009 and 2010.

Car crime was seen as greatest threat in both years standing at 21% in 2009 and 17% in 2010. By contrast actual rate remain stable.

In 2009/2010 burglary and violent offense perceived were equal. Both crime standing at 15% in this time frame. In addition, both misdeed decline to 13% in 2010/2011. Violent actual crime remain constant in both periods but burglary actual offense marginally increase by 1% in 2010/2011 which reached at 3%.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The student successfully covers all main parts of the task by comparing the perceived danger and actual likelihood of being a victim across three crime types over the two specified periods. An overview is provided, noting that perceived crime far exceeded actual rates in both timeframes, and key features such as car crime recording the highest figures are highlighted. Data is generally reported accurately, such as "standing at 21% in 2009 and 17% in 2010" for car crime. However, there are some minor inaccuracies in quoting figures (e.g., stating burglary and violent offences were both 15% when 2009/10 actually shows 15.5%, and stating burglary actual reached 3% when it was 2.5% in 2010/11). Despite these minor data reading slips, the response satisfactorily addresses the prompt requirements.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The response is logically organized into four paragraphs, beginning with an introduction, followed by an overview, and then detailed body paragraphs. There is a clear overall progression. Cohesive devices are used to link ideas, such as "Overall," "By contrast," and "In addition." However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or repetitive, such as "Both crime standing at 15%" and abrupt transitions between sentences in the final paragraph. Paragraphing is used sufficiently and appropriately, but the mechanical nature of some cohesive links prevents the response from achieving a higher band.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully incorporating terms such as "consecutive periods," "misconduct," "prevalence," and "proportion." However, there are notable word choice and collocation errors, such as "actual misconduct remained constant increased slightly" (ungrammatical phrasing), "car offence recorded the highest ratio," and "both misdeed decline." Spelling is generally fine, but lexical inaccuracies and awkward phrasing restrict the score to this level.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, attempting relative clauses and introductory phrases. However, there are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ("actual rate remain stable", "both crime standing", "Violent actual crime remain constant"), missing articles, and awkward phrasing ("burglary and violent offense perceived were equal"). While these errors do not completely impede communication, their frequency prevents the writer from achieving a higher band.

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

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