Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-01

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 bar chart illustrates information of families who spent their weekly earning in a single country from 1968 to 2018.

Overall, majority earning was spent on food and housing as well as on leisure activities. The minimum amount of earning was spent on the fuel and power.

It can be seen that food, housing and leisure have shown more proportion than others during that time period. Food has highest percentage of money spent with 35% in 1968 and approximayely 17% in 2018, whereas housing and leisure have almost similar percentage with slightly difference, housing has 10% in 1968 and about 19% in 2018. While families spent just one digit less than 10% in1968 and around 22% in 2018.

Furthermore, transport and clothing have significantly increase in weekly expenditure while clothing and footware in 1968 with 10% and only 5% in 2018, although transport covers approximately 7% in 1968 and 14% in 2018. Moreover, families spent equal proportion 7% in both years and weekly expends on personal goods has similar percentage to fuel and power which was 4% in 2018 and a small difference in 1968 that personal things has 7% and fuel has 6%.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response attempts to cover all parts of the task by reporting key features of the bar chart, but the information is sometimes imprecise or confusingly stated, such as when discussing leisure and housing trends. While an overview is provided at the beginning, some ideas are under-developed or lack clarity, leading to a partial coverage of the visual data. For instance, the reference to families spending equal proportion and weekly expends lacks clear comparative connection. The selection of data points is evident, but the lack of precise articulation and minor inaccuracies in interpreting the figures prevent the response from achieving a higher level of task fulfillment.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The text presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to structure the response into introduction, body, and concluding thoughts. However, progression is sometimes hindered by mechanical or awkward cohesive devices, such as 'Furthermore' and 'Moreover', which do not always logically link the disparate data points. Referencing is occasionally unclear, particularly in sentences like 'While families spent just one digit less than 10% in 1968 and around 22% in 2018', where the subject is missing or ambiguous. Paragraphing is used, but internal flow within paragraphs requires more precise signposting and logical sequencing to guide the reader smoothly through the comparative data.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate to convey basic information about the chart, featuring terms like 'expenditure', 'proportion', and 'percentage'. However, there are noticeable lexical errors and awkward word choices, such as 'weekly earning' instead of 'weekly earnings', 'approximayely' due to a typo, and 'clothing and footware' (spelling). Attempts to use less common vocabulary sometimes result in unnatural collocations or inaccurate phrasing, such as 'significantly increase in weekly expenditure' where an adverb/verb form mismatch occurs ('increased'). These errors do not entirely impede communication, but they restrict the lexical score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The writing demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but control over grammar is inconsistent. There are frequent grammatical errors in verb tenses, such as 'Food has highest percentage' (missing article), 'have shown more proportion' (inappropriate verb tense for static comparison), and prepositional use. Complex structures, when attempted, often contain faults, such as in 'whereas housing and leisure have almost similar percentage with slightly difference', which exhibits word form and preposition issues. Punctuation and subject-verb agreement errors also occur, which cause some difficulty for the reader and reflect a limited, frequently inaccurate range of grammatical structures.

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