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 chart provides the information about the housholds in the US and their yearly income in three different years.

Overall, In year 2007 and 2015 more people had annual income higher than 100k dollars and almost equall number of housholds had 75,000 to 99,999 dollars annual income in these three years.

According to the given details in the chart, almost 29 millions housholds had $100,000 yearly revenue in 2007 and in 2011 the housholds number fallen to 28 millions with $100k in yearly income. Moreover in 2015 more housholds had highest yearly amount that is about 33 millions.

In addition, the number of housholds with annual income of $50,000 to %74,999 remained same throught these years. The housholds with $75,000 to $99,999 yearly revenue increased in 2015 that were 15 millions, In year 2011 the total housholds with this icome was 13 millions and i year 2007 they were almost 14 millions.

However, in year 2007 almost 23 millions housholds had $25,000 to $49,999 in yearly revenue and in 2011 the houshold number increased with this income to about 30 millions. In year 2015 the number of housholds slightly decresed to 28 millions with this annual income.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The student attempts to address the task by summarizing the main features of the US household income chart across 2007, 2011, and 2015. An overview is attempted in the second paragraph, mentioning the highest income group and the stable mid-income group. However, there are several inaccuracies when reporting specific data points compared to the provided chart. For instance, the student states that households earning $100,000 or more in 2007 were 'almost 29 millions' and that the $50,000 to $74,999 income bracket remained exactly the same throughout (which is accurate at 21 million), but the breakdown for the $25,000 to $49,999 bracket contains inaccuracies (stating 23 million for 2007 instead of the actual 27 million). Furthermore, some details are slightly under-developed or imprecise. Overall, the response covers the prompt but suffers from data misinterpretations that place it in Band 5.5 to 6.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The text is organized into paragraphs, each generally focusing on a different income category or overall trend, providing a coherent overall arrangement. However, the progression is sometimes hampered by mechanical or repetitive cohesive devices, such as 'In addition', 'Moreover', and 'However', which are used somewhat abruptly. Referencing is occasionally unclear, and sentence-to-sentence transitions lack smoothness. Paragraphing is attempted, but the grouping of ideas could be structured more logically to guide the reader seamlessly through the comparisons. These formatting and organizational limitations align with a Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms like 'annual income', 'revenue', 'housholds' (consistently misspelled), and 'brackets'. However, there are numerous spelling errors throughout the text, including 'housholds' instead of households, 'equall' instead of equal, 'fallen' instead of fell, 'throught' instead of throughout, 'icome' instead of income, and 'decresed' instead of decreased. The range of vocabulary is somewhat limited, relying heavily on basic descriptive terms with frequent repetition of words like 'housholds' and 'income'. The lexical control is weak due to spelling and word choice inaccuracies, supporting a Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response includes a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting structures such as 'According to the given details in the chart, almost...'. However, grammatical accuracy is notably weak, with multiple errors including article misuse ('in year 2007' instead of in the year 2007 or in 2007), preposition errors, and awkward phrasing like 'the houshold number increased with this income'. Punctuation errors, such as comma splices ('...that were 15 millions, In year 2011...'), also occur frequently. While communication is not entirely impeded, the high frequency of errors across basic sentence structures keeps the score at Band 5.0.

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

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