Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-30

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 4.5)

the graph illustrates about the numbers of jobs in four sectors of the economy in america between 1960 to 2020

in 1960 when the manufacturing job were launched the demand of it has increased almost 5 million till 1980 after that it started steadily to fall down and ended up in approximately 13 million in the year of 2020,and here comes the retail jobs from the starting it was growing rapidly till 2000,the job has increased 20 millions in almost half of the century after that it remained a bit above than 20 million till 2020

on the other hand the healthcare job was following almost the same trend as retail firstly it started with two and half million then it went 5 million in 1980 after that it hit 11 million then again it jumped into 15 million in the year of 2020, lastly the agriculture side it started with 5 million and it dropped buy the year of 1980 then it was like the same till 2000 and it dropped a little bit in 2020 by 1 million

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response attempts to cover the main trends in the four sectors shown in the graph, such as the peak in manufacturing and the growth of retail and healthcare. However, there are significant inaccuracies in reporting the data. For instance, the student states that retail jobs 'increased 20 millions' and that healthcare 'went 5 million' then 'jumped into 15 million in the year of 2020'. Furthermore, the response lacks a clear overview or concluding summary of the overall trends, which is a key requirement for Academic Task 1. Because of these omissions and data misinterpretations, the task is only partially addressed, aligning with a band 5.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

The writing suffers greatly from a lack of punctuation, capitalisation, and proper paragraphing. The entire response is essentially a run-on sequence of clauses with little to no clear separation between sentences. While some basic cohesive devices like 'on the other hand' and 'lastly' are used, the complete absence of full stops and capital letters makes the text very difficult to follow and read logically. There is no clear overall progression due to this structural deficiency, placing this criterion at band 4.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is quite basic and repetitive ('increased', 'started', 'dropped'). There are notable errors in word choice and phrasing, such as 'manufacturing job were launched' (manufacturing jobs existed prior to 1960; the chart simply shows numbers) and 'dropped buy the year'. The range is minimally adequate to convey basic trends, but awkward collocations and imprecise expressions mean it falls short of band 6. Communication is strained due to phrasing limitations.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.0

Grammatical control is weak throughout the text. The most glaring issue is the complete lack of sentence boundaries and punctuation; sentences run into one another without capital letters or periods. There are also agreement errors ('manufacturing job were launched') and awkward syntactic structures. While some simple and compound structures are attempted, errors are extremely frequent and impede the reading process, making a band 4 appropriate.

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