Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-10-08

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

THE FIVE BEST SMALL COMPANIES TO WORK FOR

Student answer (Band 4.5)

The table illustrates the best 5 companies for the employees .

Overall, the data shows that the 5 th company is the best bc it recruits a lot of employees and the gender is pretty fair between males and females , the enrergy is youthfull , however it is selective when it comes to high incomes. Contraty to the other companies.

The fifeth is better than the other companies in every thing , for instance it has 190 employee and they dont make preferances when it comes to the gender where they had 51 male and 49 female in a very youthfull age .However, it has 2 drawbacks: it returns 33% of workers and only 2% of the workers have a high income. The fourth one is a girly company where from the 76 worker 78 are females , this company is the opposite of the 4th one.

the three other companies dont have so many employees but income of a good part of them is high, youthfull as well and dont turnover a big proportion.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response4.5
Coherence and Cohesion4.0
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall4.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.5

You identify several relevant features, including the fifth-ranked company’s 190 employees, balanced gender ratio, high turnover and low share of high earners. However, the overview is inaccurate: the fifth company is not “the best” in the survey; it ranked fifth, and its large workforce does not establish why it ranked there. Some figures are also misread: the fourth company has 13% men and 87% women, not 78 women out of 76, and the fifth company’s 51:49 ratio is a ratio, not a count. The final comparison of the other three is too broad and overlooks important contrasts, such as the third company’s 74% high-income staff. A clearer overview and accurate, selective comparisons are needed.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

There is an attempt to organise the response into an introduction, an overview and further comparisons, and phrases such as “Overall” and “for instance” help signal the purpose of some statements. However, the progression is difficult to follow because the overview makes an unsupported claim and the next paragraph shifts between the fifth and fourth companies without a clear comparison. “This company is the opposite of the 4th one” is confusing because the fourth company is being discussed, and the final sentence groups three companies together without explaining their differences. Use separate, logically ordered paragraphs and clear references to each ranking; connect comparisons directly to the figures they describe.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some task-relevant vocabulary, including “staff turnover,” “high income” and “gender,” so the reader can recognise the main subject. However, the range is limited and several choices are inaccurate or informal, which sometimes makes the meaning unclear. “Girly company” is not suitable for an objective report, while “returns 33% of workers” does not express staff turnover naturally. There are also noticeable spelling errors, including “enrergy,” “Contraty” and “youthfull.” Aim for precise, neutral terms and check spelling. For example, describe the fourth company as having a strongly female workforce, and say that turnover “stands at” or “reaches” 33%.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response attempts both simple and more extended sentences, including the overview beginning “Overall, the data shows…” and the sentence explaining the fifth company’s drawbacks. However, control is inconsistent, and errors in sentence boundaries, agreement, articles and punctuation sometimes make the relationships between ideas difficult to understand. For example, “the 5 th company is the best bc it recruits…” is an informal, poorly punctuated construction, and “from the 76 worker 78 are females” has faulty number agreement and sentence structure. The final sentence also lacks clear parallel grammar. Practise writing complete sentences with accurate singular and plural forms, and use commas and full stops to separate comparisons.

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