Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-07
IELTS Writing Task 1 question
The plans below show a college cafe before it was redesigned and how it looks now.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
The plans below show a college cafe before it was redesigned and how it looks now.
Student answer (Band 4.5)
The given line graph illustrates the information about the variety of jobs in four sectors of the economy in the United States from 1960 to 2020.
Overall, there was a peak of jobs in the sector of manufacturing, whereas the healthcare sector in case of jobs was less preferred by the US.
In 1960, the number of jobs of manufacturing in the US was 15 million and this figure surged rapidly to 20 million in the next two years, it decreased continuously and reached between 10 to 15 million in the given period of time.
Around 6 million jobs were retail and agriculture sectors. Both figures followed the opposite trend as the field of retail showed an upward trend and agriculture field followed the downward trend and reached its the lowest point, just around 3 million. In case of healthcare, around 15 million jobs were recorded in 2020.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 2.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 4.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 2.0
The response is significantly off-topic. The prompt asks for a description of a college cafe redesign (a visual plan/map task), but the student has written a report about a line graph concerning job sectors in the US. Because the student failed to address the actual task prompt, the score is severely impacted. Furthermore, the response is under the 150-word minimum, which necessitates a penalty. The content provided does not relate to the provided image at all, resulting in a failure to report on the main features of the required task.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
While the essay is structured into paragraphs and uses some cohesive devices like 'Overall' and 'In 1960', the logical progression is irrelevant to the task provided. The paragraphing is mechanical, and the connection between ideas is limited by the fact that the content does not match the prompt. The use of referencing is clear, but the overall arrangement fails to serve the purpose of describing the provided visual information.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The vocabulary is adequate for a basic report, using terms like 'surged', 'continuously', and 'downward trend'. However, there are issues with collocation and precision, such as 'in case of jobs was less preferred' and 'the field of retail showed an upward trend'. The range is sufficient to convey the information about the graph, but it is not applied to the correct task, which limits the ability to demonstrate a wider range of topic-specific vocabulary.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5
The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as 'the number of jobs... was 15 million and this figure surged'. There are several grammatical errors, including 'reached its the lowest point' and 'the healthcare sector in case of jobs was less preferred'. Punctuation is generally functional, but the frequency of errors in sentence construction and word order prevents the response from reaching a higher band.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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