Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.0 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-08-19

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The table below gives information about the five small companies in Britain that came top in a survey of staff conducted by a national newspaper to find out which companies are the best to work for.

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

THE FIVE BEST SMALL COMPANIES TO WORK FOR

Student answer (Band 4.0)

The line graph illustrates the oil production in China from 1982 to 2006. The data is measured in millions.

Overall, consumption and production experienced an incline. Nevertheless, consumption was greater than production. Consumption remained the same at first few years, while production showed the growth in the first year. In addition, in the first three years, consumption is lower than production but in the middle of the year consumption surpassed to the production.

To begin with, production stood at 2 million in 1982 then it increased to 3 million in 1986 before levelling out from 1986 to 1994. After that, there was a slight increase in oil production and reached approximately 3.3 million in 1998. Subsequently, in the last two years, it remained intact.

Turning to consumption, it witnessed an unchanged, with approximately 2 million between 1982 and 1990 then it climbed sharply in 1994. After this, it again experienced a surge in the last three years and in 2006, it accounted for more than 6 million.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 1.0

The response fails to address the task prompt entirely. The prompt asks for a summary of a table regarding 'The Five Best Small Companies to Work For,' but the student has written a report about oil production in China. This is a clear case of a memorised or irrelevant response, which results in a very low score for Task Achievement. Even if the content were relevant, the description of the data is inaccurate and lacks the necessary focus on the main features required for a Band 1 task. Because the response is completely off-topic, it cannot be assessed as a successful attempt at the specific task provided.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The essay is organised into paragraphs, and there is some attempt to use cohesive devices such as 'To begin with,' 'Turning to,' and 'In addition.' However, the logical progression is undermined by the fact that the content does not match the provided visual data. The referencing is mechanical, and the flow of ideas is disjointed because the text describes a graph that does not exist in the prompt. While the structure follows a standard report format, the lack of relevance to the actual task makes the coherence ineffective.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary is generally simple and repetitive. Phrases like 'experienced an incline,' 'remained intact,' and 'witnessed an unchanged' show a limited range and some awkward collocations. There is little evidence of the precise, academic vocabulary required for describing data trends. While the words used are understandable, they do not demonstrate the flexibility or precision needed for higher band scores. The lexical range is adequate for basic communication but insufficient for an academic task.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors. Examples include 'consumption is lower than production but in the middle of the year consumption surpassed to the production' (incorrect tense and preposition usage) and 'it witnessed an unchanged' (incorrect word form). Punctuation is generally acceptable, but the grammatical control is inconsistent. The errors do not always impede communication, but they are frequent enough to prevent the response from reaching a higher band.

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

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