Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-10-05

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 4.5)

This bar chart represent the result of a survey conducted over a three-year period to discover what people who live in London think of the city. All the figures are given in percentage.

The first question of survey is what are the best things about living in london. Many types of things are mentioned. The highest population said range of shops in all years at above 40%, and in first year, lowest population said night life with 22%. Next year, second highest best thing is mixture of people about 37%. In the third year, highest is same, but followed by museums and art galleries with 35%. There are many things more which are like by people are job opportunities about 35%, and transport nearby 20% in all years.

Second question is what are the worst things about living in london. Five things are given in it. The highest worst items in 1st year are cost of living, traffic congestion, and crime about 58%, and lowest are cost of housing, and transport nearby 34%. Highest are traffic congestion at 58%, and cost of living about 50%, and lowest is transport about 27% in both second and third year respectively. Third question is polution, litter start from 70% to 75% then came to 65% in year 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively, and air quality and noise is in down trend from 65% and 58%.

overall, people are being happy with passing of time.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.5

The response addresses the task only partially. While the student attempts to describe the charts regarding the best and worst things about living in London, the overview is extremely minimal, consisting of a single simplistic sentence at the end ('overall, people are being happy with passing of time'). Furthermore, the selection of data is erratic and lacks a clear, structured approach. Figures are often misread, generalised vaguely (e.g., 'about 37%', 'nearby 20%'), or presented as population counts rather than percentages ('highest population said range of shops'). To move to a higher level, the student needs to provide a clear, distinct overview of the main trends and select and report key data accurately without relying on fragmented lists of individual data points.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.5

There is some basic organisation with separate paragraphs tackling different sections of the visual data, but there is no clear overall progression. The response lacks logical sequencing, moving abruptly between categories without clear connections. Cohesive devices are minimal, repetitive, or inadequate (relying heavily on sequential markers like 'next year', 'second question', and 'third question'). Paragraphing is poorly handled, as the body paragraphs lump multiple distinct survey questions and charts together rather than grouping information logically. To improve, the student should use cohesive devices more flexibly to guide the reader through the data and organise the report into distinct, logical paragraphs with clear topic sentences.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The lexical resource is limited and minimally adequate for the task. The vocabulary used is basic and repetitive, relying heavily on words taken directly from the prompt (e.g., 'survey', 'conducted', 'period', 'London', 'city', 'best things', 'worst things'). There are noticeable errors in word choice and collocation, such as using 'population' instead of 'percentage' or 'proportion' ('The highest population said range of shops'), and awkward phrasing like 'things more which are like by people'. Spelling is generally acceptable for common words, but the limited range and frequent lexical inaccuracies cause some difficulty for the reader and prevent the response from achieving a higher score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

The response exhibits a very limited range of structures, relying mostly on simple sentences with frequent attempts at complex or comparative structures that are structurally flawed. There are frequent grammatical errors, including missing articles ('represent the result', 'in first year'), incorrect verb forms ('is polution, litter start... then came'), preposition errors ('in year 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively'), and subject-verb agreement issues. Punctuation is also basic and occasionally problematic. These frequent errors cause difficulty for the reader. To improve, the student must work on basic sentence construction, accurate use of tense and aspect, proper article usage, and reducing the frequency of grammatical slips.

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.