Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.0 · 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

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

Student answer (Band 4.0)

The linear graph show information about the number of jobs in four different sectors

of the economy in us country in between 1960 and 2020.

It can be manifested that, jods of manufacturing and Healthcare was decrease and retail and agriculture sectors jobs was increase.

To comments with, there was 6 million employee jobs in healthcare sector in 1960 and then decreased with 3 million jobs in 1980 and 2 million in 2020 respectively, there was 15 million jobs in manufacturing sector in 1960 it increase with 20 million jods in 1980 and then continually decreased.

moreover, in agricultural sector around 3 million jobs in 1960 and increase with 5 million jobs in 1980 and in 2000 there was 11 million people jobs in retail sector. there was similar amount of people jobs in Healthcare and retail sectors in 1960. which was 6 million in 2020 there was 16 million people jobs in retail sector

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response4.0
Coherence and Cohesion4.0
Lexical Resource4.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy4.0
Overall4.0

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

The response attempts to cover the main trends in the four economic sectors between 1960 and 2020, but it suffers from severe inaccuracies regarding the visual data. For instance, the student states that manufacturing and healthcare decreased while retail and agriculture increased, which completely misrepresents the trends for healthcare (which grew significantly from 2 million to 16 million) and agriculture (which decreased from 6 million to 2 million). Furthermore, specific data points are incorrectly attributed, such as claiming there were 6 million employees in healthcare in 1960 and that it subsequently decreased. Consequently, the information reported is largely unreliable when compared against the chart, leading to a low band score under Task Achievement.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

The organizational structure of the response is extremely weak. The essay is divided into poorly formulated paragraphs with abrupt transitions such as 'To comments with' and 'moreover'. Sentences are often run-on, combining multiple unrelated data points without proper punctuation or logical sequencing. For example, the third paragraph crams together healthcare, manufacturing, and agricultural figures in a chaotic manner. There is no clear overall progression of ideas, and cohesive devices are either misused or absent, making the text difficult to follow and resulting in a low coherence score.

Lexical Resource: Band 4.5

The vocabulary used is very basic, repetitive, and frequently marred by word-form and spelling errors. Words like 'linear graph' instead of 'line graph', 'jods' instead of 'jobs', and 'us country' demonstrate a limited lexical range. The student attempts to use sector-specific terms like 'manufacturing', 'retail', 'agriculture', and 'healthcare', but these are undermined by widespread inaccurate collocations and incorrect lexical choices (e.g., 'employee jobs', 'people jobs'). These persistent errors often strain the reader's understanding.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.0

Grammatical control is weak throughout the response. There is a complete absence of complex sentence structures used accurately. The text contains numerous basic grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement issues ('the linear graph show', 'sectors jobs was increase'), incorrect prepositions ('in us country in between'), and tense confusion ('was decrease', 'it increase'). Punctuation is also heavily neglected, resulting in run-on sentences with comma splices. These frequent errors cause significant difficulty for the reader.

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