Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-10-20

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 given bar charts and line graph illustrate the result of survey conducted over a three year period to find out thoughts of people about the city who live in London, measured in percentages.

Overall, given bar charts provides the information on best and worst things about living in London following with the line graph that shows the percentage of people answering yes for the major problems listed in bar chart.

On the one hand, best things about living in london were the range of shops and job opportunities following with the mixture of people, where range of shops recorded the highest percentage in the first year and then gradually decrased to 42% in the second year from 45%. Job opportunities were around 38% in first year which fell to 35% in the second year and remained unchanged in the third year.

However, people think that cost of living, traffic congestion and crime were the worst things about living in London which was more than 55% in the first year. Second year's survey shows that traffic congestion remained same and then declined to approximately 48% in the third year. Moreover, three major problems were there reported by people in the survey with downward trend.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

You identify the survey’s subject and distinguish the best and worst aspects, and you report some relevant figures, such as shops at 45% and job opportunities falling from about 38% to 35%. However, the report covers the charts only partially. It omits the line graph’s results for litter, air quality and noise, as well as several important best- and worst-feature categories. Some details are inaccurate or unclear: shops fell to about 42% in Year 2, not from 45% to 42% as a gradual decline across the period, and traffic congestion did not remain unchanged before falling; it was about 55.5% in both Years 1 and 2, then 49% in Year 3. The overview should summarise the main patterns across all three visuals.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, an overview and separate paragraphs for positive and negative aspects. This gives the reader a basic route through the information, and linking phrases such as “On the one hand” and “However” help signal shifts. However, the overview mainly describes what the charts show rather than summarising their key findings, and the final paragraph introduces “three major problems” without clearly identifying or comparing them. Some linking is mechanical or imprecise, particularly “following with,” and the relationship between the bar charts and line graph is not developed. Grouping related figures more systematically and using clearer references to years and categories would make progression easier to follow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant topic vocabulary, including “percentage,” “survey,” “job opportunities,” “traffic congestion” and “downward trend,” so the meaning is generally understandable. There is some repetition of “things,” “people” and “year,” and several collocations are unnatural or imprecise: “find out thoughts of people,” “following with,” and “major problems were there reported.” Spelling errors such as “decrased” and inconsistent capitalisation of “London” also reduce accuracy. Aim for concise, conventional report language—for example, “residents’ views,” “was followed by,” and “respondents identified”—and use precise verbs such as “rose,” “fell” or “remained stable” to describe changes. This would improve clarity and range without making the report unnecessarily elaborate.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt a mixture of simple and complex sentences, including clauses with “where” and “which,” and most of the intended meaning can be followed. However, some sentence structures are faulty or incomplete. In “Overall, given bar charts provides,” the plural subject requires “the bar charts provide”; “following with the line graph” does not form a clear grammatical connection. There are also problems with articles and agreement in “a three year period,” “in first year,” and “which was more than 55%,” where the reference to several categories is unclear. The sentence about traffic congestion combines a stable figure and a later decline in a confusing structure. Practise accurate article use, subject–verb agreement and clear comparisons, while retaining your attempts at complex sentences.

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