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:

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The provided pie charts illustrates responses by instructors of foreign languages in britain to a survey report concerning that why students from different parts of the world learning a foreign language. First Pie chart below elaborate the major reason for learning of another language while second chart demonstrates how many teachers felt that there has been a recent change in the reasons.

Overall, major common reason of learning new language is to travel while less than that bussiness/work and purchasing property is the main reason. However, personal development , social contacts and general interests cover the minimum part of the reasons. To elaborate recent changes , buying property overseas becomes the popular cause of learnig new langauge skills , while travel dcreases dramatically to the lowest percentage .

To explain the first pie chart, travel reason was the most common among other reasons with 33% , bussiness and buying property gradually less with 26% and 19%. while foreign partner is the lowest possible cause at 35 along with the slightly high percentage of personal development and social contact both are at 7%.

To describe the recent changes in the trend, perecentage of people admiring new language for tavel surprisingly hit the lowest at 3% while buying property in abroad rose and reach the highest percentage of 34

%. Furthermore, personal development and foreign partner becomes same at 4%. Social contacts rose up to 15% and there is no change in the trend of about 15% of the total percentage.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the task, presenting an overview and reporting key figures from both charts. However, some ideas are under-developed or imprecise, which places the response at this level. For instance, the student states that 'foreign partner is the lowest possible cause at 35', which contains a data error reading 3% as 35, and confuses the chart categories by mixing reasons and percentages. The overview correctly identifies travel and business as major reasons and notes the shift towards buying property overseas, but the lack of precise data synthesis prevents a higher score. Furthermore, 21 words copied directly from the prompt were excluded from the official count, though the text as a whole adequately covers the main visual features.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The report exhibits a coherent overall arrangement with a logical paragraph structure, dividing the introduction, overview, and specific chart details into distinct paragraphs. Cohesive devices are used to guide the reader through the data, such as 'Overall', 'To elaborate recent changes', and 'Furthermore'. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical. For example, transitional phrases like 'To explain the first pie chart' and 'To describe the recent changes in the trend' feel repetitive rather than fluid. Additionally, logical progression within sentences is occasionally disrupted by awkward phrasing, such as 'bussiness and buying property gradually less with 26% and 19%', which affects the overall clarity of the relationships between data points.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is minimally adequate for the task, providing a sufficient range to describe basic chart features such as 'percentage', 'trend', and 'highest percentage'. The student attempts less common vocabulary items like 'overseas', 'dramatically', and 'admirings', but these attempts are often marred by inaccuracy or inappropriate word choice. Spelling and word-choice errors are noticeable throughout the text, including 'bussiness', 'perecentage', 'tavel', and 'learnig'. Furthermore, lexical collocation is weak in places, such as 'people admiring new language for tavel', which causes some difficulty for the reader and prevents the vocabulary from reaching a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response displays a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on simple constructions alongside some flawed attempts at complex sentences. There are frequent grammatical errors in article use, prepositions, verb forms, and subject-verb agreement. Examples include 'The provided pie charts illustrates' (singular/plural mismatch), 'concerning that why students' (unnecessary conjunction), 'travel reason was the most common' (missing article), and 'buying property in abroad' (incorrect prepositional usage). Punctuation is also erratic, with frequent spacing errors before commas and periods. These errors persist throughout the text and occasionally cause difficulty for the reader, characteristic of this grammatical level.

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.