Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-06

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 given graph illustrsharplyates the information about quantity of employment in four areas of the economy in the US from1960 to 2020.The caliberation of data is in number.

Overall, the manufacturing job shows rise at the begining and declined after certain period of time. Where as Healthcare job shows continous growth till the end same as Retail. Agriculture remain least job provider.

At first, Manufacturing started in 1960 with 15 jobs and sharply reached to 20 in 1980 . After it started to decline dramatically and reaches around 13 job in 2020.Additionally,Healthcare soar from no job in 1960 to around 16 job in 2020.Healthcare shows positive change in job sector and provided employment opportunites.

At last, agriculture remains the least job provider around 6 job in 1960 and downfall began and exceed to around 2 job in 2020. It has a major eye catching change.In fact retail provided around 6 job in 1960 and flucated in 2000 with 15 job and reaches to around 16 job in 2020 same as healtcare.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response successfully addresses all parts of the task by reporting the main trends and making relevant comparisons across the four economic sectors. An overview is present, highlighting the contrasting trajectories of manufacturing, healthcare, and retail, alongside the declining trend in agriculture. However, some ideas and figures are under-developed or imprecise. For example, the student writes that manufacturing started 'with 15 jobs' rather than 15 million, and states that healthcare started with 'no job' when the graph shows approximately 2 million. Despite these minor data inaccuracies, the core information and key features are adequately identified, placing the response solidly within the mid-level expectations for this criterion.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The text presents a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to group information logically into an introduction, an overview, and body paragraphs discussing specific sectors. However, cohesion is sometimes faulty or mechanical. Words and phrases are occasionally conjoined improperly due to spacing issues (e.g., 'from1960', 'Where as'), and referencing or transitional markers can feel abrupt, such as starting paragraphs with 'At first' and 'At last'. Paragraphing is used to separate ideas, but the progression between sentences lacks complete fluidity, resulting in a somewhat mechanical flow that prevents the response from achieving a higher band.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting less common terms such as 'caliberation', 'dramatically', and 'fluctuated'. However, there are noticeable lexical and word choice inaccuracies, such as omitting the unit 'million' when describing the data (e.g., 'around 13 job', 'around 6 job') and a typographical/spelling error ('illustrsharplyates'). Word choice is occasionally imprecise, which reflects a limited control over precise collocations and terminology appropriate for academic data description. These errors do not entirely impede communication, but they restrict the lexical score to this level.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

A mix of simple and complex sentence forms is attempted, such as 'Where as Healthcare job shows continous growth till the end same as Retail.' There are several grammatical and mechanical errors throughout the response, including missing plural markers ('job' instead of 'jobs'), subject-verb agreement issues ('Agriculture remain', 'retail provided... and flucated'), and missing prepositions or articles. Punctuation and spacing errors are also frequent (e.g., missing spaces after periods). While these errors do not completely obscure the meaning, they occur regularly enough to demonstrate a limited control of grammatical accuracy.

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