Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-16

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 graph demonstrates how weekly income of families are spent in one country during 1968 and 2018.

Overall, most of families spending were on food in 1968 whereas leisure was the highest in 2018. Furthermore, Fuel and power were the lowest paid on in both years.

Regarding 1968, 35% of the weekly income paid on food, which is the highest proportion. While, fuel and power had the lowest percentages at around 4% of the weekly income. Housing, clothing and footware had similar percentages; families spent 10% of their weekly income on them. In addition, almost 7% of the weekly income consumed on household and personal goods. while transport and leisure had slightly higher consumption, reaching around 8% and 9%.

in 2018, families consumed roughly 22% of the income on leisure and it was the highest feature they paid on in this year followed by housing and food at around 19% and 17%, respectively. However, fuel and personal goods were the lowest items families consumed on at approximately 3.5%. Transport and household goods were in between at around 17% and 7.5%, respectively.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

You identify the main shift clearly: food is the largest category in 1968, while leisure leads in 2018, and you note that fuel and power is among the smallest categories. Most figures are reported plausibly, including food at 35%, leisure at about 22%, and housing at 19%. However, there are important inaccuracies: fuel and power in 1968 is about 6%, not 4%, and transport in 2018 is about 14%, not 17%. The overview also says fuel and power was lowest in both years, although personal goods is equally low in 2018. The response covers the task and selects relevant comparisons, but some details are less accurate or fully developed than others.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response has a clear overall structure, with an introduction, a brief overview, and separate paragraphs for the two years. This makes the comparison easy to follow, and phrases such as “Regarding 1968” and “In 2018” help signal the shift between periods. Some linking is less controlled: “While” begins a fragment after the sentence about food, and “Furthermore” adds little to the overview’s relationship between the trends. The final paragraph also lists several categories without consistently showing how their values compare with 1968. Keep the useful year-by-year organisation, but connect comparisons more explicitly and use linking words only where they clarify the relationship between ideas.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use a reasonable range of task-related vocabulary, including “proportion,” “highest,” “lowest,” and “followed by,” so the main information is generally understandable. However, several word choices and collocations are noticeably unnatural or imprecise, such as “paid on,” “consumed on,” and “highest feature they paid on.” “Consumption” is also not the most natural way to describe shares of weekly income in this chart. There are spelling and form issues in “footware” and inconsistent capitalisation at the start of sentences. Aim for precise chart language and natural collocations; this would make your descriptions clearer and more fluent without needing unusually advanced vocabulary.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt a mix of simple and more complex forms, including comparisons and clauses with “whereas” and “which,” and the overall meaning can usually be followed. Some grammatical errors remain, however. In the opening, “income … are spent” has subject–verb disagreement and an awkward passive construction; “most of families spending” also has an incorrect noun phrase. “While, fuel and power…” is an incomplete sentence, and the lowercase starts in “while” and “in 2018” show inconsistent sentence punctuation. Work on agreement, complete clause structure, and sentence boundaries. More accurate control of these patterns would strengthen the range you are already attempting.

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