Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-09-29

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 5.5)

The bar charts and line graph demonstrates the outcome of a survey taken over a three-year period to know what people who live in London think about the city.

Overall, the people believe that the best things about London in the past three years which remained the highest are the range of shops, job opportunities, as compared to night life and transport remained the lowest. While the bad things about London is the cost of living, traffic congestion and crime, which was the highest in the first year.Furthermore, citizens who answered yes consider litter, air quality and noise as the major problem.

In first year, around 45% of people marked range of shops as the good thing about London followed by job opportunities around 38%, mixture of people around 35% meanwhile night life and transport remained the lowest with just relatively close to 25%

On the other hand, around 58% individuals hate the cost of living in first year as compared to around 48% in the next two years followed by traffic congestion relatively same as cost of living. Meanwhile crime remained highest in first year and the cost of housing and transport remained the lowest. Additionally 70% marked litter as the major problem followed by around 65% airquality and 58% noise

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The candidate has attempted to describe all three parts of the visual data, including the best and worst aspects of living in London as well as the survey on major problems. An overview is provided in the second paragraph, although it is slightly convoluted and lacks precision regarding overall trends. Some figures are provided to support the description, such as 'around 45% of people marked range of shops' and '70% marked litter'. However, there are some inaccuracies and omissions in data reporting, such as misinterpreting the worst things ranking and failing to synthesise the line graph effectively across all three years. Overall, the response addresses the task adequately but falls short of higher bands due to a lack of fully developed comparative analysis and occasional data misreadings.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The essay is divided into an introduction, an overview, and body paragraphs, providing a basic structural framework. However, paragraphing and logical progression are somewhat weak. The overview is placed awkwardly and combines disparate points without clear overarching themes. Cohesive devices are used mechanically or are missing, such as 'Furthermore' and 'Meanwhile', and referencing is occasionally unclear, as seen in phrases like 'the bad things about London is...'. Transitional phrases between sentences could be managed more flexibly to ensure a smoother flow of information throughout the report.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is generally adequate for the task, with some appropriate lexical items related to survey data and urban life, such as 'range of shops', 'job opportunities', and 'traffic congestion'. However, the range is limited and repetition occurs, particularly with words like 'highest', 'lowest', and 'around'. There are also instances of awkward collocation and word choice, such as 'individuals hate the cost of living' instead of 'dislike' or 'consider a major problem', and 'the good thing' instead of 'a positive aspect'. Spelling is mostly accurate, but lexical control remains basic.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The candidate attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are noticeable subject-verb agreement errors, such as 'The bar charts and line graph demonstrates' and 'the bad things... is'. Punctuation is also problematic, with missing full stops at the end of paragraphs and sentences running together awkwardly. While some complex structures are attempted successfully, frequent errors in articles, prepositions, and verb forms occasionally cause strain for the reader and prevent the response from achieving a higher band score.

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