Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-15

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The graph below gives information about the number of jobs in four sectors of the economy in the US between 1960 and 2020.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Number of jobs in four sectors of the economy in the US, 1960-2020

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The line graph illustrate jobs in millions in four sector of the US economy between 1960 to 2020, measured in millions.

The overall heathcare and retail experienced subsitential growth over the period whereas, the agriculture employment declined.and manufacturing was the only sector to show a rise followed by a fall, reaching to its peak in 1980 while heathcare and retail ended the period with highest employment figures.

The manufacturing emplyment started from 15 million by 1960 then rose to 20 million in 1980. however this figure subsequently fell to 17 million in 2000 and 13 million by 2020. By contrast, the number of jobs in retail increased steadily throughout the period

. It climbed from 6 million in 1960 to 10 million in 1980, before reaching approximately 15 million in 2000 and 16 million in 2020.

Agriculture employment folloed the opposite trend , falling from 6 million jobs in 1960 to just 3 million in 1980. It remained roughly at this level till 2000 and further declining to 2 million in 2020. In contrast the healthcare the the most substential growth in all four sector. The number of healthcare jobs increased from 2 million in 1960 to 5 million in 1980 then sharply rose to 12 million by 2000 and reaches to approximately 16 million by 2020.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The student successfully covers all four economic sectors shown in the graph and makes appropriate comparisons across the 1960 to 2020 timeline. An overview is provided in the second paragraph, capturing the overall trends of growth in healthcare and retail, the decline in agriculture, and the fluctuation in manufacturing. The data points cited are generally accurate and aligned with the visual reference, such as manufacturing peaking in 1980 at 20 million and healthcare reaching approximately 16 million by the end of the period. However, there are some minor inaccuracies in specific data reporting, such as stating that healthcare rose to 12 million in 2000 when the graph shows around 11 million. Despite these minor misreadings, the core requirements of Task 1 are met effectively.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The response is arranged logically into four paragraphs, following a standard introduction, overview, and two body paragraphs dedicated to contrasting trends. Cohesive devices are employed to connect ideas, such as "By contrast," "however," and "In contrast." However, paragraphing and sentence boundaries contain mechanical flaws, such as a stray full stop in the middle of a sentence in the second paragraph ("declined.and manufacturing") and isolated punctuation errors. Referencing is generally clear, but the overall progression is occasionally disrupted by awkward phrasing and punctuation mishaps, preventing the score from reaching higher bands.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student attempts a range of vocabulary suitable for a data-driven task, including terms like "employment," "fluctuated," "steadily," and "substential." However, there are numerous spelling and word-choice errors throughout the text, such as "illustrate" instead of "illustrates," "heathcare," "subsitential," "emplyment," and "folloed." Less common lexical items are used, but their spelling and morphological accuracy are inconsistent. While the vocabulary is adequate to convey the general message, these recurrent lexical errors prevent the response from achieving a Band 7.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, incorporating relative clauses and time markers. There are, however, frequent grammatical and mechanical errors, including subject-verb agreement issues ("The line graph illustrate"), preposition errors ("jobs in four sector"), and incorrect verb forms ("reaches to approximately 16 million"). Punctuation is also problematic, notably missing commas after introductory phrases and incorrect sentence fracturing. While the meaning is generally clear despite these errors, the high frequency of grammatical slips keeps this criterion at a Band 5.5.

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