Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-29
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 illustrates how many people worked in four sectors of the United States economy from 1960 to 2020.
Overall, employment in healthcare and retail sectors increased significantly over the time period. In contrat, figures for manifacturing and agriculture sectors declined. While the manifacturing remaind one of the largest employment sector for most time until healthcare and retail sector tookover in final years.
In 1960, manifacturing sector was the largest employment sector with 15 million jobs, figure rose to 20 million in 1990 before falling to roughly around 14 million in final year. Retail sector experienced the upward trend started from around 5 million jobs to peaked at almost 15 million in the end. numbers tookover manifacturing sector in year 2020. While healthcare started with lowest employment numbers roughly around 1 million in intial year figure rose sharply to 15 million in 2020.
For the employment opportunities in agriculture sector the figure gradully decreased over the given time period. The sector became the smallest sector in terms of jobs.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 6.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0
The student covers all parts of the task by reporting on the four sectors and making appropriate comparisons between them from 1960 to 2020. An overview is successfully provided, outlining the main trends such as the significant increase in healthcare and retail and the decline in manufacturing and agriculture. Key data points are selected and reported, such as manufacturing starting at 15 million and healthcare reaching 16 million by 2020. However, there are minor inaccuracies in reporting specific figures compared to the visual data, and some data points lack precision (e.g. referencing 1990 which is not on the graph). Overall, the task response is clear and adequately fulfills the requirements of Task 1.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5
The response is organized into logical paragraphs, with an introduction, an overview, and body paragraphs detailing specific trends. Cohesive devices are used to connect ideas, such as 'Overall', 'In contrast', and 'While'. However, there are noticeable mechanical errors in cohesion and referencing, particularly in sentence boundaries and fragmented structures in the second paragraph (e.g., 'While the manifacturing remaind one of the largest employment sector for most time until healthcare and retail sector tookover in final years.'). Paragraphing is generally appropriate, but logical progression within sentences occasionally falters due to missing connectors.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, using terms such as 'employment', 'sector', 'increased significantly', and 'gradually decreased'. However, there are numerous spelling errors throughout the text, such as 'contrat', 'manifacturing', 'remaind', 'tookover', 'intial', and 'gradully'. Less common vocabulary is attempted but is frequently marred by these spelling inaccuracies and minor word choice issues (e.g., 'figure rose to 20 million in 1990', when 1990 is not presented on the graph). The vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey the message, but errors prevent a higher score.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5
The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including subordinate clauses introduced by 'while' and 'as'. However, grammatical accuracy is weak, with frequent errors including missing articles (e.g., 'Retail sector experienced the upward trend'), incorrect verb tenses, and awkward phrasing. For example, 'Retail sector experienced the upward trend started from around 5 million jobs to peaked at almost 15 million' contains multiple errors in a single clause. Punctuation is also inconsistent. These errors occasionally cause some difficulty for the reader.
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