Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 13 · 2026-10-11

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The chart below shows the percentage of households in owned and rented accommodation in England and Wales between 1918 and 2011.

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

Student answer (Band 4.5)

The bar chart illustrates the proportion of household in both forms [owned and rented accommodation ] between 2 cities from 1918 to 2011.

Overall, people owned accommodation household expenditure dramatically increased but gradually decreased at the end.citizens having rented accommodation , expensess on households significantly declined over the period given.

The most significant difference in expenditure between the two countries was in 1918.Rented accomodation paid out more than owned accommodation in 1918 [around 76% and around 22% respectively ].in 1939,expenditure of rented accommodation fell to 78% as compared to owned with rapidly grew to 32%.owned expensess remained stable on 32% and other further declined to 58% in 1953.

40% was owned accommodation whereas rented dropped to 58% in 1961

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

You identify the chart’s subject and give a broad overview that ownership rose while renting declined, which is relevant. However, the report is incomplete and only partially covers the period: it stops at 1961, omitting the later rise in ownership to a peak of about 69% in 2001 and its fall to 64% in 2011, alongside the reverse pattern for renting. Several figures are also inaccurate: in 1939 renting was about 68%, not 78%, and ownership in 1961 was about 41%, not 40% (a small difference), while renting was about 59%. The response is 31 words below the required minimum. Include a complete overview and select key figures from the whole period to make the main trends clear.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.5

There is a basic attempt to organise the response: an opening statement is followed by an overview and then figures from earlier years. The chronological references help the reader follow some of the data. However, the report ends abruptly after 1961, so there is no progression through the full chart or concluding comparison. Connections between ideas are also unclear in places, particularly in the sentence beginning “in 1939,” where the figures and comparison are difficult to follow. Punctuation and spacing around sentence boundaries are inconsistent, which further interrupts the flow. Use separate, clearly focused paragraphs for the overview and the main comparisons, and connect each year’s figures with accurate linking phrases.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some task-related vocabulary, including “proportion,” “declined,” “increased,” and “remained stable,” so the reader can recognise the intended topic and trends. However, the range is limited and several word choices or collocations make the description confusing. “Household expenditure” and “expensess on households” do not describe the percentage of households in each type of accommodation; “expenditure” suggests spending. “Between 2 cities” is also inaccurate because the chart covers England and Wales. Spelling errors such as “accomodation” and “expensess” are noticeable. Choose precise terms such as “share of households,” “home ownership,” and “rented accommodation,” and check spelling and collocations before submitting.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

You attempt both simple statements and a longer comparison, and the opening overview shows an effort to summarise trends. However, sentence structures are limited and errors frequently make relationships between figures hard to interpret. For example, “people owned accommodation household expenditure dramatically increased” lacks a clear grammatical structure, while “citizens having rented accommodation” is not a complete clause. There are also problems with articles, plurals, and sentence boundaries, as in “proportion of household” and the run-on sequence beginning “in 1939,expenditure.” Use complete subject–verb sentences, for example, “The proportion of households that owned their homes rose,” and punctuate each comparison clearly. More accurate control of basic sentence patterns is needed for the data to be easy to understand.

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