Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-11

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 6.5)

The bar chart illustrates the data about average weekly spending by families in a country in 1968 and 2018.

Overall, the greatest proportion of family income allocated to food in 1968, leisure became the leading expense by 2018. Over the 50-year period, spending on essential like clothing, food and personal goods decreased significantly, whereas expenses on housing, transport and leisure experienced notable increases.

In 1968, food accounted for the largest share at 35%, followed by housing and clothing, which made up 10% and leisure stood at around 8%. In contrast, food expenditures dropped significantly to roughly 17%, while in housing and leisure, the expenses increased to approximately 19% and 22%, respectively.

Taking the least significant groups, Fuel and personal goods accounted for more or less 5% to 10% in both years, whereas household goods remained same over the following period at around 8%. There is a moderate rise in expenditure on transport in 2018, that increase from 8% in 1968 to 14% in 2018.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0

The response identifies the main shift clearly: food was the largest category in 1968, while leisure led in 2018, and it supports this with the key figures of 35%, 17% and 22%. It also reports the rises in housing and transport and the stability of household goods, so the main features are covered and relevant comparisons are made. Some details are less precise: clothing is grouped with housing as 10% in 1968, but its 2018 fall to 5% is not reported; fuel and personal goods are described broadly as ranging from 5% to 10%, which obscures their individual changes. The overview also calls clothing and personal goods “essential,” a generalisation that is not clearly supported by the chart. More exact category-by-category comparisons would strengthen the report.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response has a clear overall structure: an introduction, an overview, and two paragraphs presenting the main figures and smaller categories. Its progression from the largest changes to the remaining groups is easy to follow, and linking expressions such as “Overall,” “In contrast,” and “whereas” help signal comparisons. This meets the lower-band expectation of coherent arrangement and shows some flexibility, but cohesion is not consistently smooth. For example, “In contrast, food expenditures dropped … while in housing and leisure” makes the comparison awkward, and “Taking the least significant groups” is an imprecise transition. The final transport sentence feels added after the paragraph’s point about smaller categories. Grouping related increases and decreases more deliberately would make the progression more controlled.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.5

There is an adequate range of task-related vocabulary, including “accounted for,” “proportion,” “allocated,” “decreased significantly,” and “remained.” These choices allow the writer to describe proportions and trends, and the meaning is generally clear. Some less common or formal expressions are attempted, but several are imprecise or awkwardly collocated: “expenses … experienced notable increases,” “least significant groups,” and “more or less 5% to 10%” do not express the data as naturally as they could. “Essential” is also an overgeneralised label for the selected categories, while “footware” is misspelled in the response’s wording if intended as a chart category. More precise terms such as “share,” “category,” and “rose” would improve accuracy and naturalness.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The response uses a mix of simple and more complex sentence forms, including a contrast clause with “whereas” and a sentence comparing the 1968 and 2018 figures. Most meanings remain clear, but some grammatical errors are noticeable. The overview lacks a verb in “the greatest proportion of family income allocated to food,” and “spending on essential like clothing” has an incomplete noun phrase. In the final sentence, “that increase” should be “that increased” or “increasing,” and the clause beginning “while in housing and leisure” is not formed smoothly. There are also inconsistent sentence patterns when introducing figures. Revising these structures and checking verb forms and articles would improve control while retaining the useful range of sentence types.

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