Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-11-11

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The chart below gives information about how families in one country spent their weekly income in 1968 and in 2018.

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

1968 and 2018: average weekly spending by families

Student answer (Band 4.5)

The bar chart illustrates about how families expenses weekly from their income in activities in 1968 and 2018 in one country.

Overall,it can seen that food had ample expenses in1986 plus, leisure activity had highest number in 2018 whereas ,fuel and power had lowest in both years.The all activity spend below 25% of total weekly income except food in the families .The household goods ,personal goods and transport are almost same with one tenth in 1986.

In 1986, food has consume exactly three quarters and housing and clothing & footware 10%.The remaining activities fuel and power ,household goods & personal goods ,transport and leisure were below 10% of average weekly spending of families .

The leisure activity was nearly quarters and housing was about below 20%.The food,fuel & power clothing &footware,transport with ratio of about 22%,7%10%,8%.

The other two activities household and personal goods were same with 8 % .

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

The response identifies a few relevant features, including food as the largest category in 1968 and leisure as the largest in 2018, and it attempts to compare categories across the two years. However, the account is only minimally successful because several key figures and years are misreported: the chart shows 1968, not 1986, and food was about 35% in 1968, not “three quarters.” The final paragraph also gives a confusing sequence of figures that does not clearly match the categories. Although the overview mentions the low fuel-and-power share, it does not clearly summarise the main shift from food towards leisure, housing and transport. Report the two years accurately and select a few reliable comparisons to make the summary more informative.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.5

There is an attempt to organise the response into an overview and two detail paragraphs, and the opening overview signals that comparisons will follow. However, progression is difficult to follow because the details are not consistently grouped by year or clearly linked to the overview. For example, the final paragraph begins with leisure and housing, then lists several percentages without making clear which figure belongs to which category. Connectors and punctuation are also awkward in places, as in “Overall,it can seen” and “whereas ,fuel and power.” Use a clear structure—overview first, then a paragraph comparing the main 1968 figures with 2018—and use explicit category names alongside each figure.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The response uses some task-relevant vocabulary, such as “weekly income,” “housing,” “fuel and power,” and “average weekly spending,” so the topic is generally recognisable. However, the range is limited and several word choices or collocations make the meaning unclear. “Families expenses weekly from their income in activities” is not a natural way to describe the chart, while “ample expenses” and “highest number” are imprecise for proportions. There are also spelling and form issues, including “footware” and repeated use of “activity” where “category” would be more suitable. Build a small set of accurate chart-description phrases, such as “accounted for,” “share of weekly expenditure,” and “rose/fell to,” and use them consistently.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

The response attempts both simple statements and longer comparisons, but grammatical control is weak and errors frequently make relationships between ideas hard to understand. Examples include “it can seen” instead of “it can be seen,” “food has consume,” and “The all activity spend below 25%.” Tense and agreement are inconsistent, and some sentence boundaries and punctuation are unclear, particularly in the long list of percentages near the end. The sentence “The household goods, personal goods and transport are almost same” also lacks the article needed before “same.” Practise accurate basic sentence patterns for describing figures, then add comparisons using controlled clauses such as “while” or “whereas.”

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