Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-10-03

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 given pie charts illustrates the data by mentors of foreign languages in Britain to a survey regarding the reasons for students learning a foreign language.

At a cursory glance, it is evident from the first pie chart that travel is accounted for the dominent reason while foreign partner represented the smallest percentage.Whereas the second one provides the data, related buying property overseas as a significant reason for increase in people learning. In contrast, to travel that made up the smallest segment .

To commence with the 1st chart ,language.33% travel accounted for the largest proportion .Followed by business or work.Collectively these sectors travel and business/work made upto 59% .Furthermore,buying property overseas represented the 19%.In additon ,Social contracts and personal development together accounted for 14% of the total .General interest held the 5% percentage.Lastly ,foreign partners constitued the 3% the smallest share among all .

Turning to the 2nd chart ,increase in people learning is due to 34% buying property overseas.Moreover, social contacts and no change together accounted for 30% responsible for learning.Collectively ,personal development and foreing partner made up to 8%.19%businesss work and 6%general interest were one of the reasons.Whereas,travels held the smallest percentage of 3%.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by reporting on both pie charts and selecting key features, such as identifying travel as the most common reason in the first chart and buying property overseas in the second. However, some ideas are under-developed or lack full clarity in comparison. For instance, the overview sentence "travel is accounted for the dominent reason" contains awkward phrasing and misses the full scope of the initial data, while some data points across the body paragraphs are listed mechanically rather than being fully synthesised or compared effectively. Despite these minor lapses in development and data selection precision, the main trends and proportions are successfully identified and outlined, meeting the requirements for this level.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response maintains a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to structure the report into an introduction, an overview, and separate body paragraphs for each chart. However, cohesion is sometimes faulty or mechanical. The use of transitional phrases like "To commence with the 1st chart" and "Turning to the 2nd chart" provides a basic organizational framework, but referencing and sentence flow are disrupted by mechanical linking and punctuation errors, such as "In contrast, to travel that made up the smallest segment" and broken clauses. Paragraphing is present and separates the information logically, but internal cohesion within the paragraphs lacks smoothness and sometimes obscures the logical progression of ideas between data points.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

An adequate range of vocabulary is used for the task, successfully attempting less common terms such as "proportion", "segment", and "constituted". However, there are noticeable inaccuracies in word choice, collocation, and word formation throughout the text. Examples include "mentors of foreign languages" instead of teachers, "travel is accounted for" instead of accounts for, "Social contracts" instead of social contacts, and "foreing partner" (spelling error). These errors do not seriously impede communication as the reader can still understand the intended data, but they prevent the writing from achieving a higher lexical band score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some variety in structure. However, there are frequent errors in grammar and punctuation throughout the response. Issues include incorrect passive and active voice pairings ("travel is accounted for the dominent reason"), awkward modifier placement, punctuation fragmentation ("language.33% travel accounted for"), and missing articles or prepositions. While these errors rarely completely impede communication and the basic meaning remains accessible, the persistent structural mistakes and lack of fine control over complex sentence patterns mean the writing fits comfortably into this band.

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