Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-10-02

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 6.0)

The bar chart and the line graph illustrates the responses of a survey conducted over a three-year period to find out what does the residents of London think of the city.

Overall, majority of the people in all three years considered the range of shops as the best thing about living in London. Cost of living, traffic congession and crime were tagged as the worst things by the people.

In addition, the line chart summarised that residents beleived that littering was the major issue at all times.

More than 40% of people living in London responded with the range of shops being the best thing which was followed by job opportunities with over 35% of people agreeing to that. While the percentage of people choosing night life gradually increased over the period reaching around 25% from 21%, the same pattern was observed in figures of museums and art galleries as well and it increased from nearly 28% to around 35%.

The percentage of people considering transport as the best thing (~22%) was almost the same as the percentage of people thinking of it as the worst (~25%). A substantial proportion of residents (over 50%) believed that cost of living, traffic congession and crime are the worst things in year 1 Though, for crime these figures faced a significant fall in year 2 being less than 40%. Furthermore, in year 1 and 2 over 70% of people agreed that littering was a major issue in London and the same was observed in year 3, however the percentage of people agreeing declined to approximately 65%.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt by covering the best and worst aspects of living in London alongside the line graph data, successfully demonstrating a part of higher-band performance. An overview is provided, highlighting key features such as the range of shops being the top positive aspect and issues like cost of living and traffic. However, some ideas and comparisons are under-developed or lack full extension. For example, specific percentages for several categories are mentioned, but the trends over the three-year period are not consistently or thoroughly contrasted across all data sets. The selection of data is generally relevant and accurate, yet a slightly deeper synthesis of the overall patterns would push the response further.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The report displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to logically sequence information by grouping the charts into separate paragraphs. Paragraphing is used adequately to separate the introduction, overview, and body details. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or faulty. For instance, the transition 'Though, for crime these figures faced a significant fall' is awkwardly punctuated and abrupt. Referencing and cohesive devices such as 'while', 'furthermore', and 'however' are employed, but their use can feel slightly repetitive or stiff, preventing the flow from achieving the seamless progression seen at higher bands.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

An adequate range of vocabulary is used for the task, successfully conveying numerical data and survey findings with terms like 'proportion', 'percentage', and 'gradually increased'. The writer attempts less common vocabulary such as 'substantial proportion' and 'significant fall'. However, there are notable word-choice errors and spelling mistakes, such as 'congession' instead of 'congestion' and 'beleived' instead of 'believed'. While these lexical inaccuracies do not impede communication, they reflect typical constraints of this band level, where precision and full spelling control are occasionally lacking.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and subordinate structures like 'More than 40% of people living in London responded with...' and 'While the percentage of people choosing...'. There are some errors in grammar and punctuation, such as subject-verb agreement issues in the introduction ('what does the residents... think') and a comma splice before 'Though'. Despite these errors, the structures are generally controlled well enough that they rarely impede communication, aligning with the expected characteristics of this level.

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