Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-15

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 tracks the number of employment opportunities in the four distint sectors of economy in the United States, of the time period between 1960 to 2020.

Overall, the manfacturing sector has fallen from lead position and is surpassed by two other sectors. The jobs available in retail are almost the same as agriculture at one point.

At the beginnng of period, there were exactly 15 million jobs available in the manfacturing sector, which reached a peak of 20 million in 1980 before crashing to around 13 million in 2020. The retail sector and healthcare sector both had almost 6 million jobs in 1960. The healthcare sector experienced a dip in 1980 by reaching a low of approximately 3 million jobs and maintained a relatively stable trajectory throughout the period.

The agriculture sector had the lowest number of jobs available in 1960 of around 2 million but then surged to reach a peak of 16 million in 2020. Similarly, the retail sector also rose steadily to same number of jobs available, and both sectors are now in the lead position.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

The response identifies manufacturing’s early lead and the later prominence of retail and healthcare, but several central trends are assigned to the wrong sectors, so the summary only minimally represents the graph. Healthcare did not fall to about 3 million and remain stable: it rose from 2 million to 5 million in 1980, then climbed to 11 million and 16 million. Agriculture did not start at 2 million and surge to 16 million; it began at about 6 million and declined to 2 million. The overview also says retail and agriculture were almost equal at one point, which is not a meaningful feature of the data. To improve, verify each series against the legend and report the main contrasts accurately, especially the rise in healthcare and decline in agriculture.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, an overview, and two detail paragraphs. The sequence from general trends to figures gives the reader a basic route through the report, and linking phrases such as “Overall,” “At the beginning,” and “Similarly” help connect points. However, the grouping of sectors is not consistently clear, and the final paragraph’s “Similarly” links agriculture’s supposed rise to retail, obscuring which trend belongs to which line. Some references, such as “both sectors,” require the reader to infer the intended comparison. Use one paragraph for manufacturing and agriculture and another for retail and healthcare, naming each sector when describing its changes. This would make the progression and comparisons clearer.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

There is enough vocabulary to describe the graph, including “peak,” “surpassed,” “maintained,” and “trajectory.” However, some choices are imprecise or unsuitable for a neutral data report: “crashing” is overly dramatic, “employment opportunities” is less direct than “jobs,” and “lead position” is awkward. Several spelling errors—“distint,” “manfacturing,” and “beginnig”—also reduce accuracy. In addition, “dip” is used for a rise in healthcare, and “surged” describes agriculture even though it declined; these choices make the trends harder to understand. Aim for precise, neutral verbs such as “rose,” “fell,” “peaked,” and “remained stable,” and check spelling and sector labels carefully.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.5

The response uses a mix of simple and more complex forms, including the relative clause in “which reached a peak” and the contrastive overview sentence beginning “Overall.” Most sentences remain understandable, and errors do not generally prevent the reader from following the intended meaning. Some grammatical patterns are less controlled, however. The opening phrase “of the time period between 1960 to 2020” has an awkward preposition pattern; use “over the period from 1960 to 2020.” In “rose steadily to same number,” the article is missing (“the same number”), while “both sectors are now in the lead position” is an unclear construction. Continue using varied sentence forms, but check articles, prepositions, and sentence phrasing so comparisons are expressed cleanly.

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