Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-06

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 6.5)

The charts illustrates the total earning of a country from exports of five distinct categories and change in values of every category of export in 2016 and 2015.

Overall, it is clearly seen that petroleum products are the biggest source of earning in both years, while textiles was smallest. Meanwhile, the percentage change in values depict upward trend in all categories except gems and jewellery.

To begin with, the earning from exporting petroleum goods was $60 billion in 2015, which increased marginally to around $63 billion in 2016. Similarly, the export earning of engineered products increased to over $60 billion in 2016 from around $55 billion in 2015. In contrast, approximately $43 billion export earning of gems and jewellery in 2015, dropped slightly by almost $3 billion in 2016. Whereas, agriculture products export almost remained the same around $30 billion in both year. Textiles witnessed biggest surge in export earning, increased dramatically from almost $25 billion in 2015 to over $30 billion in 2016.

Probing further, in 2016, the biggest rose occured in the percentage change in values of textiles category, accounted for 15.24%, followed by engineered goods with 8.5%. Meanwhile, 3% increase noticed in petroleum products. The smallest change of 0.81% climb noticed in agriculture items. In contrast, the percentage change in values dropped significantly by 5.18% for gems and jewellery.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0

The response successfully addresses all parts of the task by covering both the absolute export values for 2015 and 2016 and the percentage changes. A clear overview is provided at the beginning, noting the dominant and lowest categories as well as the general trend. Key features are selected and reported well, such as highlighting petroleum products as the largest source and textiles experiencing the biggest surge. However, some ideas and figures are slightly underdeveloped or lack finer integration between the bar chart data and the percentage change table in the final paragraph, which prevents the response from reaching a higher band. The data cited is generally accurate and well-grounded in the visual reference provided.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response maintains a coherent overall arrangement with a clear logical progression from the introduction, to the overview, to specific bar chart comparisons, and finally to the percentage change data. Paragraphing is used sufficiently to structure the response into logical blocks. Cohesion is present, but it occasionally feels a bit mechanical or repetitive in transitions, such as using phrases like 'To begin with', 'In contrast', and 'Probing further'. Referencing is mostly clear, though some transitional phrasing could flow more smoothly to fully meet the demands of higher bands where cohesion is completely natural and unobtrusive.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for the task, attempting less common lexical items such as 'marginally', 'surge', and 'dramatically'. However, there are some minor word choice and collocation inaccuracies, such as 'biggest rose occured' instead of 'largest rise occurred' or 'agriculture products' instead of 'agricultural products'. Despite these occasional errors, the vocabulary is sufficient to communicate the information clearly without impeding the reader. To move up further, the student needs to use less common vocabulary with greater precision and stylistic awareness.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The writing exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating attempts at varied structures such as relative clauses and comparative constructions. There are some noticeable grammatical and punctuation errors present, such as missing articles ('The charts illustrates' instead of 'The chart illustrates', 'in both year' instead of 'in both years'), incorrect verb forms ('biggest rose occured'), and awkward phrasing in relative clauses. However, these errors are not frequent enough to impede communication, fitting the criteria for a mix of error-free and flawed structures where meaning remains clear throughout.

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