Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-26
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 5.0)
The bar chart illustrates the average weekly spending by families in one particular country in two years (1968 and 2018),
Overall, families like to spend more on food in 1968 compared to other categories.but in 2018 they are spending more on lesure. The spending on housing and transport increased in 2018. Furthermore, personal goods, clothing and fuel still shows more spending on 1968 than 2018. While household remained stable in both year.
Families liked spending on food in 1968 but it decrease significantly in half by 35% in 1968 to become almost half in 2018, whereas lesure increased from 9% to above 20% in 2018. While the proportion of housing and transport also increased for housing it almost become doubled in 2018 by 20%, and for transport rose from 8% in 1968 to 14% in 2018.
Other categories on weekly sepnding that was dominiting in 1968 but decreasing in 2018, regarding clothing and footwear decreased half in 2018 by 5% in campared to 10% in 1968, and personal goods and fuel also decrease. While the household goods remained constant throughout the two years by 7%.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5
The response attempts to cover the main features of the chart, correctly identifying key trends such as the drop in food spending and the increase in leisure and housing. However, there are several inaccurate data points and misinterpretations. For instance, the student states that food spending decreased 'in half by 35% in 1968 to become almost half in 2018', which is confusingly phrased and mathematically imprecise (it drops from 35% to 17%). Additionally, household goods are reported as remaining constant at 7% when the chart shows 8% in both years. The overview is somewhat basic and split awkwardly across sentences with punctuation errors. Overall, the response addresses the prompt but lacks precision in reporting data.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0
The response is divided into paragraphs, attempting an introduction, an overview, and body paragraphs. However, the logical progression is frequently disrupted by poor punctuation and sentence fragmentation, such as ending the first sentence with a comma instead of a full stop and breaking the overview awkwardly ('Overall, families like to spend more... categories.but in 2018...'). Cohesive devices are used (e.g., 'Furthermore', 'Whereas', 'While'), but referencing and linking are often clumsy or repetitive, such as the repeated use of 'While' at the start of multiple clauses. Paragraphing is present but internal cohesion suffers from run-on sentences and missing boundary markers.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.0
The lexical range is quite limited and repetitive, relying on basic vocabulary to describe trends (e.g., 'increase', 'decrease', 'spend', 'stable'). There are several noticeable word choice and collocation errors, such as 'sepnding', 'dominiting', and 'campared'. The student attempts some less common vocabulary like 'proportion' and 'constant', but overall control is weak. Spelling errors like 'lesure' and 'footware' further detract from the lexical score, placing this firmly at Band 5.0.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, using relative clauses and transition words. However, grammatical accuracy is low. There are frequent errors in verb tense and agreement ('families like to spend', 'it decrease significantly', 'housing it almost become doubled'), punctuation splices, and prepositional usage ('spending on 1968'). Complex structures are frequently faulty, causing some difficulty for the reader and impeding smooth comprehension. The frequency of basic grammatical slips places this response at Band 5.0.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
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