Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-09-18

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The chart below shows the number of households in the US by their annual income in 2007, 2011 and 2015.

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The bar graph presents the data of households in the US according to their annual income in the years 2007, 2011 and 2015.

Overall, both the households in the year 2007 and 1015 follow the similar trend, where the most husehold earn more than $100,000, while least number of household make around $75,000 to $99,999. In the year 2011, the number of household making money between $25,000-$49,000 was the highest, as household making $100,000 or more declilned a bit.

In the year 2007, household making more than $100,000 was leading with approximate of 29 millions households annually, whereas the households with income around $75,000-$99,999 wasthe lowest(i.e. around 14 million households. The second highest households make around $25,000-$49,999 annually, while households earning less than $25,000 and between $75,000-$99,999 holded third and fourth place respectively.

In the year 2011, the number of households making more than a hundred thousand dollars fell slightly, as a result household with around $25,000-$49,999 annual income became the highest group and those who earned less than $25,000 took the second place. While last and second last place stayed the same throughout the year.

In the year 2015, the garph followed the similar trend to that in the year 2007, with household who earned more than $100,000 annually once again becoming the leadng group and those who earned less than $25,000 the lowest. Others managed to hold their ground at the same place.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The student covers all parts of the task well, providing an overview of the main trends and selecting relevant data to make comparisons across the three years. For instance, the response correctly identifies that households earning $100,000 or more were the highest group in 2007 and 2015, while the $25,000-$49,999 bracket peaked in 2011. However, there are some minor inaccuracies in reading the specific figures (e.g., stating 29 million for the top group in 2007 when the chart shows approximately 29.5, and a typographical error referring to the year 2007 as '1015'). Despite these minor flaws, the main features are sufficiently reported and supported, aligning well with the Band 6.5 to 7.0 descriptors.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The response is organized into logical paragraphs, beginning with an introduction, followed by an overall summary, and then individual body paragraphs for each year (2007, 2011, and 2015). Cohesive devices such as 'Overall', 'In the year 2007', and 'whereas' are used to structure the text, though referencing is occasionally imprecise (e.g., 'while last and second last place stayed the same throughout the year'). Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate the introduction, overview, and body details, resulting in a clear overall progression that satisfies the criteria for Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms such as 'annual income', 'trend', 'declined', and 'bracket' (though often repeating 'households'). There are several noticeable lexical and spelling errors, such as 'husehold' instead of household, 'declilned' instead of declined, 'holded' instead of held, and 'garph' instead of graph. While these errors do not impede communication, they prevent the score from reaching a higher band. The vocabulary used is minimally sufficient to convey the statistical information.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as relative clauses and introductory prepositional phrases ('In the year 2007, household making more than...'). However, there are frequent grammatical errors involving subject-verb agreement and singular/plural forms, such as 'household making' instead of 'households making', and 'the households with income around $75,000-$99,999 was the lowest' where 'was' should be 'were'. Punctuation errors are also present, such as missing spaces before parentheses and closed brackets. These errors occur regularly but rarely impede overall comprehension.

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

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