Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-27

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 6.0)

The give line graph illustrates the number of people worked in four different sectors of the Us economy (manufacturing, retail, agriculture, healthcare) in between 1960 and 2020.

Overall, it can be seen that manufacturing was the largest employment in 1960 and 1980, but it's figure declined considerably after reaching on a peak in 1980. In contast, retail and healthcare were increased steadly throught the period, while agriculture showed continues fall.

In 1960, approximately 15 million people worked in manufacturing, making it the leading employment sector. This figure rose to 20 million in 1980, before falling to arround 17 million in 2000 and 13 million in 2020. Similarly, agriculture employed about 6 million people in 1960. However, it's emplyment level dropped sharply to 3.5 million in 1980 and continued to decline, reached to 1.5 million in 2020.

Furthermore, retail employment increased gradually from 6 million in 1960 to approximately 10 million in 1980. it then surged to 16 million in 2000 and jumped to 16 million in 2020. Healthcare also showed significant growth, as it started from 2.5 million workers in 1960. After that, it's figure rose to about 5 million in 1980 and 11 million in 2000, before reaching approximatly 16 million in 2020, equally to retail. By the end, retail and healthcare become the largest employment sectors.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The student successfully addresses all parts of the task by selecting, reporting, and comparing the main trends across all four economic sectors between 1960 and 2020. The overview effectively captures the primary trajectories, noting manufacturing's initial dominance followed by a decline, alongside the steady growth of retail and healthcare, and the continuous fall of agriculture. Key figures are accurately reported, such as manufacturing peaking at 20 million in 1980 and healthcare/retail reaching approximately 16 million by 2020. The response is fully developed and well-grounded in the visual data, earning a strong band score for this criterion.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response is logically organised into four distinct paragraphs, featuring a clear introduction, an overall summary, and two body paragraphs detailing specific trends. Cohesive devices are used reasonably well to guide the reader through the data, as seen with transition words like 'Overall', 'In contrast', 'Similarly', and 'Furthermore'. However, there are minor cohesion and referencing flaws, such as 'it's figure' instead of 'its figure' and a slightly mechanical progression in the final paragraph ('By the end...'). Nevertheless, paragraphing is used appropriately and overall progression is clear, supporting a solid band 6.5 performance.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for an academic task, successfully employing terms such as 'employment sector', 'decline', 'surged', and 'gradually'. Less common vocabulary items are attempted, including 'considerably', 'continuously', and 'significant growth'. However, there are notable lexical errors and spelling mistakes throughout the text, such as 'give' instead of 'given', 'Us' instead of 'US', 'steadly' instead of 'steadily', 'throught' instead of 'throughout', 'arround' instead of 'around', and 'emplyment' instead of 'employment'. Furthermore, possessive 'its' is consistently misspelled with an apostrophe ('it's'). These errors prevent the lexical score from reaching the higher bands.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and time-marker clauses (e.g., 'before falling to around 17 million in 2000'). There are, however, several grammatical errors and awkward phrasings, such as 'the number of people worked' instead of 'working' or 'who worked', 'reaching on a peak' instead of 'reaching a peak', and 'equally to retail' instead of 'equal to retail'. Punctuation is generally acceptable, but comma splices and lowercase starts to sentences (e.g., 'it then surged') occasionally occur. The frequency of these minor errors places the response firmly in the band 6 category.

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