Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-29

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 5.5)

The chart illustrate's weekly income of families in a country, spent in 1968 and in 2018. In 1968 the majority of the income is spent on food, however in 2018 leisure bacome the main focus.

The chart demonstrates that in 1968, transport, personal goods, and household expences were arround 5% to 10%. In addition housing, clothing and footware became the second most significant thing, occuping 10% of the weekly bugdet. However food remained highlighted, taking 35% of the daily income. The least was spent on fuel and power.

On the other hand in 2018, leisure out passes food by taking almost 23% of the weekly income. Furthermore, the expences of household remained the same in both years. However weekly income spent on transport in 2018 increases to almost 14%. Similarly, the income spent on housing also reaches about 20% in 2018. In contrast there is significant decrease in the weekly income spent on personal good, clothing and footware, and Fuel and power.

To sum up, on one hand food remained main focus in 1968, however in 2018 the focus shifted towards leisure.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The candidate successfully addresses all parts of the prompt by summarising the main features of weekly family spending in 1968 and 2018 and making relevant comparisons. An overview is provided at the beginning and reinforced in the conclusion, noting the major shift from food to leisure. Key data points are generally reported accurately, such as food starting at 35% and leisure rising to 22% (reported as 'almost 23%'). However, there are minor inaccuracies in categorisation and data interpretation, such as stating that 'housing, clothing and footware became the second most significant thing, occuping 10%', whereas clothing was 10% in 1968 and housing was 19% in 2018. Despite these minor lapses, the main trends are adequately covered and supported.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a clear overall progression, moving from an introduction to body paragraphs comparing the two years, and finishing with a concise summary. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different categories of spending. Cohesive devices such as 'however', 'in addition', 'on the other hand', and 'similarly' are employed to link ideas, although some transitions feel slightly mechanical or repetitive (e.g., the repeated use of 'however'). Referencing is mostly clear, though occasional awkward phrasing affects the flow between sentences. Overall organisation is logical and coherent.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The candidate demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for the task, attempting less common lexical items such as 'significant', 'bugdet' (budget), and 'out passes' (outpaces). However, there are several noticeable spelling and word choice errors, including 'illustrate's' instead of 'illustrates', 'bacome' instead of 'became', 'expences' instead of 'expenses', 'arround' instead of 'around', 'footware' instead of 'footwear', and 'good' instead of 'goods'. While these errors do not impede overall communication, they prevent the lexical score from reaching a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including subordinate clauses introduced by 'while', 'however', and 'although'. There are, however, frequent grammatical and punctuation errors throughout the text. Examples include tense inconsistencies (e.g., 'The chart illustrate's... spent in 1968', 'the majority of the income is spent'), missing articles or incorrect singular/plural forms (e.g., 'personal good', 'fuel and power'), and punctuation errors such as unnecessary commas or missing apostrophes. While these errors rarely completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to restrict the band score to a 5.0.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.