Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-08-06

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The pie charts below show responses by teachers of foreign languages in Britain to a survey concerning why their students are learning a foreign language. The first chart shows the main reason for learning a foreign language. The second chart shows how many teachers felt that there has been a recent change in the reason.

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

% of teachers reporting the following as most common reason for learning:

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The above pie charts is telling us the reasons why teachers learn a new foreign language and the second on tells us there is a change in the reason teachers learn a new language.

While in both of the chart we can see that buying property overseas and business and work are few of the major reasons.

In the first chart travel is the major reasons people learn a foreign language at 33% followed by business at 26% and purchase of property overseas at third at 19%. While the rest 22% is for general interest, social contacta personal development and a foreign partner.

In the second chart teachers tell there has been a change in reason why people learn a foreign language. The major noticeable change that compared to earlier very less amount of people of learn a new language at 3%. Then major reason why people learn language is buying property overseas at 34%, then business or work at 19%. 15% say there is no change 15% say for social contacts and rest of 14% is for general interest personal development and a foreign partner

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses the task by describing the two pie charts. However, there is a significant misinterpretation of the data: you state that the charts show reasons why 'teachers' learn a language, whereas the prompt clearly states these are reasons why 'students' are learning a language, as reported by teachers. This misreading of the data source affects the accuracy of your report. While you have identified the main trends and provided data points, the analysis is somewhat superficial. To improve, ensure you carefully read the prompt to identify who the subjects are and focus on highlighting the most significant differences between the two charts rather than just listing percentages.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The response is organised into paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the information. However, the use of cohesive devices is quite mechanical and sometimes repetitive (e.g., 'In the first chart', 'In the second chart'). There is a lack of sophisticated linking words to connect ideas within sentences, making the flow feel somewhat disjointed. Additionally, the referencing is occasionally unclear, such as in the final paragraph where the list of categories is grouped together without proper punctuation or logical separation, which hinders the overall readability and progression of the report.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks the precision and variety expected at higher bands. You rely on basic phrasing such as 'major reasons' and 'major noticeable change'. There are also some errors in word choice and collocation, such as 'contacta' (likely a typo for 'contacts') and 'very less amount of people of learn', which is grammatically awkward. To achieve a higher score, you should aim to use more academic collocations and precise terminology related to data description, such as 'predominant factor', 'a significant shift', or 'the proportion of'.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response contains a mix of simple and some complex structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally impede clarity. For example, 'The above pie charts is telling us' should be 'are telling us', and 'teachers tell there has been a change' is missing a preposition (e.g., 'report that'). There are also issues with subject-verb agreement and missing articles throughout the text. While the meaning is generally understandable, the frequency of these errors prevents the writing from reaching a higher band. Focusing on proofreading for basic subject-verb agreement and article usage would significantly improve your score.

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

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