Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-22

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The chart and table below show the results of a survey of library users at a university.

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

Categories of library users

Student answer (Band 5.5)

the pie chart and table illustrate the findings of survey conducted among university library users, breaking down their demographic distribution and their levels of satisfaction with five distinct services

Overall, full time undergraduate students constitue the largest user segment while academic staff represent the smallest group.additionally the vast majority of respondents expressed satisfaction with the library with staff helpfullness and opening hours receiving the most positive feedback and zero dissatisfaction

in terms of dominant categories full time undergraduates at 18% in contrast distance learningb students and academic staff made up yhe smallest proportions accounting for only 8% and 7% repectively .

However, Regarding user satisfaction the helpfulness of the staff received the highest praise with 95% of respondents reporting being very satisfied and the remaining 5% fairly satisfied notably neither category recorded any disatisfied users.

While satisfaction reminded strong for resources and digital insfrastructure minor discontent emerged. similarily the available of journals and wi-fi reability showed comparable patterns with very satisfied rating at 45% and 48% respectively. -

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The student covers the main features of both the pie chart and the table, providing a clear overview in the second sentence. Key highlights such as the largest and smallest demographic groups ('full time undergraduate' and 'academic staff') are identified, alongside the highest satisfaction ratings ('helpfulness of the staff' and 'opening hours'). However, there are significant data inaccuracies: the student states that full-time undergraduates accounted for '18%' whereas the chart shows 44%, creating a contradiction with the overview where they are correctly described as the largest segment. Despite this contradiction and minor data lapses, the overall response addresses the prompt effectively by reporting trends and making comparisons, earning a solid Band 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The response is arranged logically with an introduction/overview paragraph followed by body paragraphs addressing demographics and satisfaction levels. However, Coherence and Cohesion are severely impacted by mechanical issues: the student completely omits capital letters and full stops across multiple sentences, writing in a continuous run-on style (e.g., 'the pie chart and table illustrate... Overall, full time undergraduate...'). Cohesive devices are attempted ('Overall, additionally, in terms of, However, while'), but the lack of basic punctuation and paragraph formatting creates difficulties for the reader, pulling the score down to Band 5.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for an academic task, attempting less common items and specific terms such as 'demographic distribution', 'respondents', 'proportions', and 'infrastructure'. There are several spelling and word-choice errors, including 'constitue' (constitute), 'helpfullness' (helpfulness), 'disatisfied' (dissatisfied), 'reminded' (remained), 'similarily' (similarly), 'available' (availability), and 'reability' (reliability). While these errors are frequent, they do not severely impede communication because the context remains clear. This fits the profile for Band 6.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating relative clauses and comparative structures ('while academic staff represent the smallest group', 'with 95% of respondents reporting being very satisfied'). However, grammatical control is weakened by persistent errors in punctuation, capitalization, and minor agreements (e.g., missing articles, incorrect prepositions like 'survey conducted among'). The complete absence of standard sentence boundaries and capitalization prevents the grammar from achieving a higher rating, keeping it firmly at Band 5.0 as errors cause some distraction and processing difficulty.

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

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