Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-13

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The diagram below shows how one type of desert, known as a rain-shadow desert, is formed.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The formation of rain-shadow deserts

Student answer (Band 4.5)

The diagram illustrates the process about formation of rain-shadow on one type of desert.

overall, the process involed seven main stages where moist air from the sea shightly upto the windward side.

The process being when wind carring moister air through the coast line wind pushed upwards

it hit by moist air and cool by the moutain then the cloud form and next the wind pused the cloud to the top of the moutain it reaslised rain.

afrer reasling the moist air it countinues with dry air over the high altitude over the moutain, it leeward side to the moutain then dry winds reach to the inland become rainsadow desert

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response attempts to describe the diagram showing the formation of a rain-shadow desert, identifying key features such as moist air rising, cooling, precipitation, and dry air descending on the leeward side. However, the response falls significantly short of the required 150-word minimum, containing only 110 words. As a direct result of this under-length penalty, the development of the overview and individual stages is limited and lacks the necessary depth to achieve a higher band score. To improve, you must ensure that you write at least 150 words by fully elaborating on each stage of the illustrated process rather than rushing through the steps.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 4.5

The text exhibits some basic organizational structure with rudimentary transitional markers like 'overall' and 'next', but the overall progression is heavily disrupted by extreme paragraphing issues and fragmented sentences. The entire response is split into short, disjointed blocks rather than cohesive paragraphs that group related steps logically. Cohesive devices are either missing or applied inappropriately, such as 'The process being when wind carring', which hinders smooth reading. To reach a higher band, you need to group your sentences into two coherent paragraphs and use a wider range of logical connectors to guide the reader seamlessly through the sequential process.

Lexical Resource — Band 4.0

The vocabulary used is very basic and repetitive, frequently relying on simple terms like 'wind', 'air', 'cloud', and 'mountain'. There are numerous severe lexical and spelling errors throughout the text, including 'involed', 'shightly', 'carring', 'moister', 'pused', 'reaslised', 'afrer', 'reasling', 'countinues', and 'rainsadow'. These frequent inaccuracies and non-standard word formations demonstrate a limited lexical range that struggles to convey the precise scientific concepts required in an Academic Task 1 response. Learning accurate spelling and collocation for topographical and meteorological terms is essential for progress.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.0

Grammatical control is extremely weak, with pervasive errors across nearly every sentence. The response lacks basic sentence construction, featuring heavy reliance on incomplete clauses, run-on fragments, and missing verbs or auxiliary structures, as seen in 'moist air from the sea shightly upto the windward side' and 'dry winds reach to the inland become rainsadow desert'. There is almost no accurate complex sentence structure, and fundamental rules of subject-verb agreement and tense consistency are regularly broken. Frequent structural errors seriously impede comprehension and require significant remedial work on basic English sentence patterns.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.