Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-09-28

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 5.5)

The given table illustrate the information about top five small businesses in Britain through a survey conducted by national newspaper which was about to find out the best company for work. The survey has five information that was collected which are Staff numbers, Male and Female ratio, age ratio, turnover of the staff and lastly the amount of staff in high income.

Primarily, in the category of staff numbers the 5th company was the highest with 190 members followed by 2nd with 79, 4th with 76, 3rd with 72 and 1st with lowest number of 56. Furthermore, in the sex ratio, the last company having almost equal number of 51:49 followed by the 2nd with 47:53 male to female ratio and 1st and 4th was a female dominating companies with 70% and 87% of female ratio with 3rd company had 74% of males.In addition, the age category was divided in 3 parts under 35s, over 55s and between there was no elder staff in 1st, 3rd and 5th company and the number of under 35 age were 77%, 82% and 93% respectively. Also in the 2nd only 1% staff was above 55 and around 59% were under 35. At last 26% of staff was younger and 8% of staff was above 55 age in the 4th company.

Moreover, the ranking for the staff turnover was 5th, 2nd, 4th, 3rd and 1st with 33%, 18%, 13%, 8% and 5% of turnover respectively. And 74% staff in high income bracket in the 3rd company followed by 48% in the 2nd and 34% in 1st with 4th and 5th much lower about 5% and 2% respectively.

To summarise, 5th company was having maximum staff number and also more staff with under 35 age and also more staff turnover with very low in the high income bracket which was maximum in 3rd.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The student successfully covers all parts of the task by reporting the main features of the table, including staff numbers, gender ratios, age distributions, staff turnover, and high-income brackets. Key comparisons are made across the five companies, such as highlighting that the fifth company had the highest staff numbers (190) and turnover (33%), while the third company featured the highest proportion of staff in high-income brackets (74%). However, the data is presented in a somewhat mechanical, listing fashion without a clear overarching overview paragraph, which prevents the response from reaching Band 7. Nonetheless, all key data points are accurate and grounded in the visual data, satisfying the requirements for a Band 6.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a clear overall arrangement and follows a logical structure, grouping the table's categories across different paragraphs. Paragraphing is attempted, with the second body paragraph dedicated to age and gender ratios, and the third to turnover and income. However, cohesive devices are sometimes mechanical or faulty, such as 'At last 26% of staff' and repetitive use of 'followed by'. Referencing is occasionally unclear, as seen in phrases like 'between there was no elder staff'. There is clear progression, but the lack of flexible cohesive devices and slightly clunky transitions keep this criterion at Band 6.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms such as 'turnover', 'proportion', 'category', and 'bracket'. However, there are notable word-choice and collocation errors throughout the text, such as 'The given table illustrate' instead of 'illustrates', 'sex ratio' instead of 'gender ratio', and describing companies as 'female dominating' rather than 'female-dominated'. Attempts at less common vocabulary sometimes lead to awkward phrasing, such as 'amount of staff in high income'. The vocabulary is sufficient to convey the meaning, but inaccuracies prevent it from achieving a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating relative clauses and comparative structures. However, there are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with subject-verb agreement ('The given table illustrate'), missing articles ('by national newspaper'), and awkward prepositional phrases ('in the sex ratio', 'in the 2nd only 1% staff'). Punctuation is generally acceptable, and while these errors are noticeable, they do not impede overall communication. The frequency of non-systematic grammatical errors firmly places this response in the Band 6 category.

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