Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS Complete Catalyst · 2026-10-04

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:

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The illustration illustrates a study conducted in Britain by teachers of foreign languages, why their students are studing a foreign language. It is clear that travel was the most marked reason by educatores. Whereas, buying properties in various countries was the major resone for recent rise in learning foreign language.

In compare to others travel was the most common reason for learning this approximately 33% teachers marked it. However, foreign partner marked lowest at 3%, personal skill development and for social contacts both reported at 7%, general interest marked 5%, and buying properties in other country around 19%, and business or other job marked 26% by teachers.

Buying properties was significant reason for recent rise in learning other launguages around 34%, travel at 3% and it was the lowest markered reason.

However, in past travel was the most reported reason for learning other countries language and foreign partner was the lowest marked reason. In recent study buying properties was the most common reason and travel was the least common reason for studing foreign language.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response6.0
Coherence and Cohesion5.0
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by providing an overview and describing the data in both pie charts. The selection of key features is generally appropriate, noting that travel was the most common reason for learning a foreign language while buying property overseas accounted for the largest recent increase. However, some ideas are inadequately developed and lack precision. For instance, the discussion of the second chart confuses the overall reasons with the reported recent changes, and details regarding categories such as general interest and personal development are merely listed without meaningful comparison or synthesis. This unbalanced development keeps the response at this level, as key trends could have been grouped and contrasted more effectively to fully satisfy the prompt.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The text presents an overall coherent arrangement where the information is introduced and divided into paragraphs comparing the two charts. However, progression is frequently disrupted by awkward transitions and mechanical or faulty referencing. Phrases like 'In compare to others' and abrupt shifts between sentences make the logical flow disjointed. Paragraphing is attempted, but internal cohesion is weak, and repetitive structures in linking ideas—such as repeatedly stating 'marked' or 'reported'—prevent the essay from achieving a smoother and more logical progression throughout.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is adequate to communicate the basic points of the task, meeting the minimum requirements for range. There are several attempts to use less common vocabulary and task-specific terms, such as 'educatores', 'significant reason', and 'personal skill development', but these are accompanied by noticeable inaccuracies in word choice, form, and spelling. Examples include 'studing' instead of studying, 'resone' instead of reason, and 'launguages' instead of languages. Furthermore, awkward collocations like 'marked lowest' or 'lowest markered reason' appear, though these errors do not severely impede overall communication.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writer demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting comparative structures and relative clauses. However, there is a limited range of grammatical control, and frequent errors in grammar and punctuation appear throughout the text. Issues include missing prepositions, faulty article usage, and incorrect sentence boundaries, such as in the opening sentence where 'why their students are studing' lacks a clear grammatical connection to the preceding clause. While these errors rarely completely obscure the meaning, their frequency and the presence of basic structural mistakes restrict the response from achieving a higher grade.

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