Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-05

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

below shows the value of one country’s exports in various categories during 2015 and 2016. The table shows the percentage change in each category of exports in 2016 compared with 2015.

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

Student answer (Band 5.0)

The table provides information about sources of the police budget in one Britain area in 2017 and 2018 and the pie charts illustrates on which purposes money were spent and percentage of costs in both years.

Overall, the total police budget increased over the period. Local taxes provided the major part of total growth, while funding from other sources increased by only half a million pounds. The structure of costs changed slightly due to the increase of technology spendings and decrease in proportion of salaries costs.

The incomes from national government grow by 2.3 million pounds – from 175.5 to 177.8 – accounting for a major part of total incomes sources in both years. Local taxes brought in 11.1 million pounds more than last year – 102.3m in 2018 comparing with 91.2m in 2017. Other financing sources, such as grants, rose by only 500 thousand pounds, being the smallest part of total incomes in both 2017 and 2018.

In terms of costs structure, the changes were insignificant. The percentage of spendings on staff salaries decreased by 6% - from 75% to 69% - but still remained the highest value. Spendings on technology rose by the same figure as salaries fell, remaining the lowest value in both graphs. Finally, the share of costs on buildings and transports remained unchanged in both 2017 and 2018.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 1.0

The response is completely off-topic. The prompt asks for a summary of a table regarding export categories in 2015 and 2016, but the student has written a report about police budgets in 2017 and 2018. Because the student has failed to address the actual task provided, the response cannot be assessed for task achievement regarding the source material. It is a clear case of a memorized or misidentified task, which results in a very low score for task achievement as the requirements of the prompt were not met.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

Despite the content being irrelevant to the prompt, the essay itself is structured logically. It follows a standard IELTS Task 1 format: an introduction, an overview, and two body paragraphs detailing specific data points. The use of cohesive devices such as 'Overall', 'In terms of', and 'Finally' is appropriate and helps the flow of the text. Paragraphing is used effectively to separate the different aspects of the data (income vs. costs).

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The vocabulary is generally appropriate for a report-style task. The student uses terms like 'proportion', 'insignificant', 'accounting for', and 'structure of costs' effectively. There are some minor errors, such as 'spendings' (which should be 'spending' or 'expenditure') and 'incomes' (which is usually uncountable in this context). However, the range is sufficient to convey the intended meaning clearly.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The student demonstrates a good command of sentence structures, including complex sentences. There are some grammatical slips, such as 'the pie charts illustrates' (subject-verb agreement error) and 'money were spent' (should be 'was spent'). Despite these, the majority of sentences are clear and error-free. The use of comparative structures is accurate, and punctuation is generally handled well throughout the response.

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

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