Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-09-17

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The bar charts and line graph below show the results of a survey conducted over a three-year period to discover what people who live in London think of the city.

Write a report for a university lecturer describing the information below.

What are the best things about living in London?

Student answer (Band 5.0)

The bar charts illustrates the opinion of residents of London, what they think about the city over three years.

Overall, these graphs depicts the advantages and disadvantages about living in London. In the graph demonstrating advantages all the factor remain almost unchanged over these three years. In contrast disadvantageous factors show some fluctuations in some case, and some remained the almost the same over course of these three years. While line graph showing major problems showed linear decline except littering.

The major advantages of living in London showed little change, range of shops is at almost

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The response is severely under-length, containing only 96 words against the required 150-word minimum. This significantly penalises the task achievement score as the student is unable to present a fully developed overview or cover all parts of the visual data. While the student attempts to introduce the charts and provides a brief general overview of the three charts ('advantages', 'disadvantages', and 'major problems'), the text breaks off mid-sentence ('range of shops is at almost') before detailing the specific data or making necessary comparisons. Consequently, key features of the charts are missing, leading to an incomplete task response.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

Despite the incomplete nature of the text, there is a basic attempt at organisation. The student starts with an introductory sentence and provides an overview statement ('Overall, these graphs depicts...'). Basic cohesive devices such as 'In contrast' are used to link ideas. However, paragraphing is underdeveloped due to the premature ending of the response, and referencing becomes unclear as the text trails off. Logical progression is interrupted because the body paragraphs are never fully realised or completed.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student attempts some task-appropriate vocabulary such as 'advantages', 'disadvantages', 'fluctuations', and 'remain almost unchanged'. However, lexical control is inconsistent with agreement errors ('The bar charts illustrates', 'graphs depicts') and word form errors ('disadvantageous factors' instead of disadvantages). The vocabulary range is limited, partly constrained by the severe under-length of the response, and repetition of phrases like 'over these three years' is noticeable.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response contains a mix of simple and emerging complex structures. However, there are notable grammatical errors throughout the short text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('The bar charts illustrates', 'graphs depicts'), punctuation flaws (a comma splice in 'In contrast disadvantageous factors'), and incomplete structures as the writing stops abruptly. While some sentences are comprehensible, the frequency of errors relative to the small volume of text impacts the overall accuracy rating.

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

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