Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-30

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 4.5)

The chart below gives information illustrate how families in one country spent their weekly income in 1968 and in 2018.

Overall,it is lucid that In initial year food was a highest data shared and least data shared fuel and power.while,In terminal year leisure was a highest data shared and least data shared fuel and power however Household goods was both year data shared similar.

Fetching into details percentage of weekly income shows there were food was a highest data shared

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

You identify relevant overall contrasts: food is the largest category in 1968, while leisure is largest in 2018, and household-goods spending is unchanged. However, the response is only a brief start to the summary and does not report the main figures or develop comparisons across the categories. The claim that fuel and power is the smallest category in both years is inaccurate: clothing and personal goods are also among the lowest in 2018, at about 5% and 4%, respectively. The response contains 66 words, below the required 150; 14 words copied from the task prompt were not counted. Add a clear overview and select several key figures and changes to complete the task.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

There is a basic attempt to organise the response, beginning with an introduction and then an overview signalled by “Overall”. The contrast between the two years is also a relevant organising idea. However, the response ends abruptly with “Fetching into details” and does not provide a developed detail paragraph, so information has no clear progression beyond the initial observations. Linking is limited, and punctuation around “while” and “however” makes the relationships between ideas difficult to follow. Use separate paragraphs for the overview and selected comparisons, and connect those comparisons clearly—for example, contrast the fall in food spending with the rise in leisure and housing.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The response uses some task-related vocabulary, including “weekly income”, “percentage”, “food”, and “leisure”, so the topic is generally recognisable. However, the range is basic and several repeated phrases are unnatural or unclear, especially “highest data shared” and “least data shared”. “Initial year” and “terminal year” are also awkward choices for describing the two dates. These collocation and word-choice problems make the summary harder to understand, even though the intended categories can often be inferred. Use precise chart language such as “accounted for”, “the largest share”, “the smallest proportion”, and “remained unchanged” to describe spending patterns.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

The response attempts more than isolated labels, using an introductory clause and a comparison with “while” and “however”. However, sentence structures are very limited and frequent errors affect clarity. For example, “The chart below gives information illustrate” lacks a grammatical link between “information” and “illustrate”; “food was a highest data shared” has article and sentence-structure problems; and “there were food was” combines incompatible constructions. Capitalisation and punctuation are also inconsistent, as in “Overall,it” and “power.while”. Build accurate simple sentences first, such as “Food accounted for the largest share in 1968,” then practise joining comparisons with correctly punctuated conjunctions.

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.