Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-30

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 6.0)

The bar chart compares the weekly spendings of different households for different types of basic neccesities in the year 1968 and 2018 in terms of their weekly earnings.

Overall, most of the weekly income is spent on food in previous era however, in recent years, there is a shift that most families spend more on leisure activities.

In 1968, about 35% of the weekly income is spent on food which is the highest amount among all the expenditures. Lowest portion of the weekly wage is spent on fuel and personal goods which contributes for about 3.5% for both. In comparision, this percentage rose to 6% and 8% in 2018 respectively.

Furthermore, expenditure on housing doubled in 2018, which is nearly 20%. 9% income contributed for leisure activities in 1968, however; this number icreased to 22% in 2018, which is a noticeable shift. Negligible amount is spent on other activities in booth years.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response covers the main features of the chart well, providing a clear overview and supporting details with specific data points. The student correctly identifies food as the highest expense in 1968 and leisure as the prominent category in 2018. However, there are a few inaccuracies in data interpretation. For instance, the student states that the lowest portion of weekly wage in 1968 was spent on fuel and personal goods contributing about 3.5%, whereas the chart shows fuel at 6% and personal goods at 8%. Furthermore, the claim that these percentages rose to 6% and 8% in 2018 is incorrect since the 2018 figures are 4% and 4% respectively. Despite these reading errors, the overall response addresses all parts of the prompt adequately and makes relevant comparisons.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The text has a clear overall progression, moving from an introductory statement and an overview paragraph to specific body details. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different periods and categories. Cohesive devices are generally present, such as 'Overall', 'In 1968', 'In comparision', and 'Furthermore'. However, punctuation is sometimes faulty, leading to run-on sentences or awkward transitions, such as using a semicolon followed by a comma ('however;'). Referencing is mostly clear, though the logical flow is occasionally hindered by imprecise connectors.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common items such as 'expenditure', 'noticeable shift', and 'negligible amount'. However, there are several spelling and word-choice errors, such as 'spendings' instead of 'spending', 'neccesities' instead of 'necessities', 'icreased' instead of 'increased', and 'booth' instead of 'both'. Furthermore, 'in comparision' contains a spelling error. While these vocabulary and spelling errors do not impede overall communication, they prevent the lexical score from reaching a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as relative and subordinate clauses ('which is the highest amount among all the expenditures'). There are several grammatical inaccuracies throughout the text, including tense inconsistencies and subject-verb agreement issues, such as 'most of the weekly income is spent on food in previous era however, in recent years, there is a shift that most families spend more'. Punctuation errors are also notable, including missing commas and incorrect semicolon usage. Nevertheless, the meaning remains generally clear despite the grammatical flaws.

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

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