Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.0 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-09-20

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 4.0)

The bar graph represents the proption of daily use items in United States of America by their yearly income in 2007,2011 and 2015.

Overall, People with 100,000 income annualy had the highest house hold item over the period. On the other hand, Individuals with income between 75000$ to 99999$ remaines lowest in the whole time.

IN 2007 inhabitants with 10 thousand dollars had the highest ratio of households by 29% that dclines to 27% in 2011 and surges up to 32% in 2015.Indviduals that had annual salary less than 25 thousand dollars contained household items about 25% in starting year and increases to 34% in just 4 years after that it declines to 26% in 2015. People with yearly income from 50 to 75 thousand dollars had almost same capacity of households from 2007 to 2015. On the other hand, number of US households of inhabitants with yearly income ranging from 75 to 99 thousand dollars in 2007 was 14% that decreased to 13% in next 4 years and again surges up to 14% in 2015

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The response attempts to address the prompt by reporting on the chart showing US households by annual income. However, there are severe misunderstandings of the data and task content. The student misinterprets the graph as showing 'daily use items' and 'household items' rather than the number of households categorized by income brackets. Furthermore, the figures and percentages provided throughout the text (e.g., '29%', '32%', '34%') are inaccurate and do not correspond to the actual data points on the chart. While an overview is attempted, the pervasive misinterpretation of the core visual data and incorrect statistics prevent the response from fully meeting the requirements of the task. This aligns with Band 4.0 descriptors.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 4.0

The essay attempts a basic overall structure, featuring an introductory sentence and some body paragraphs, but the organization is significantly hampered by poor formatting. The response is written as one large block of text with missing paragraph breaks in the second half. Cohesive devices are minimal and sometimes inaccurate, such as repetitive use of 'On the other hand'. Referencing is also unclear due to the confusion over what the data represents ('households' versus 'household items'). There is a lack of clear logical progression between sentences. This performance corresponds to Band 4.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 4.0

The vocabulary used is very basic and often inappropriate for the task. The student confuses key terms, referring to income categories as 'daily use items' and 'household items' instead of income brackets or number of households. There are also numerous spelling and word-choice errors, such as 'proption' instead of proportion, 'remaines' instead of remained, 'dclines' instead of declines, and 'Indviduals'. The lexical range is limited and frequently impedes the reader's understanding of the intended meaning, fitting the Band 4.0 descriptors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.0

The grammatical range is very limited, relying heavily on simple sentence structures with frequent errors in tense, subject-verb agreement, and punctuation. Examples include missing articles ('in starting year'), incorrect verb forms ('remaines lowest'), and unpunctuated dates ('2007,2011'). There are also sentence boundary issues and run-on phrasing, particularly in the final paragraph where multiple clauses are joined without adequate punctuation. Errors are frequent and often cause strain for the reader, matching Band 4.0 criteria.

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

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