Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-10-06

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 5.0)

The bar chart compares the number of households by their yearly salary in 2007, 2011 and 2015 in the US.

Overall, it can be seen that a major number of people earned their salary 100,000 dollars or more in 2007 and 2015 while in 2011 about 25,000 to 49,999 dollars.On the other hand, a few households earned about 75,000 to 99,999 dollars steadily over the years.

Looking at details, about 1 million dollars or more money earned by 29 million and 33 million housholds in 2007 and 2015 respectively while by 27 million housholds in 2011. Less than 25,000 dollars earned by 25, 29 and 28 million households in 2007,2011 and 2015 respectively. Approximately 25,000 to 49,999 dollars earned by 27,30 and 28 million households in 2007, 2011 and 2017 respectively. 50,000 to 74,999 dollars earned by 22 million housholds in 2007,2015 and 2017 constantly. 75,000 to 99,999 dollars earned by 14 millions households steadily over the years.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response addresses the task only partially. While the student attempts to report the main features of the chart, there are significant inaccuracies in the data cited. For instance, the writer states that "about 1 million dollars or more money earned by 29 million and 33 million housholds", misinterpreting the income bracket as the earnings amount itself. Furthermore, several data points are misreported or attributed to incorrect years, such as referencing the year 2017 which does not appear on the chart. The overview is somewhat confusingly phrased and lacks clarity regarding the overall trends across the period, reflecting limited and under-developed ideas.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

There is some organisation, beginning with an introductory sentence and attempting a body paragraph structure, but there is no clear overall progression. Cohesive devices are minimal, repetitive, or inaccurate, such as the frequent reliance on "respectively" with awkward positioning and repeated phrases like "earned by... in 2007, 2011 and 2015 respectively". Paragraphing is also inadequate, as the response is lumped into just two dense blocks without a logical division between the overview and the detailed data breakdown. Referencing between years and income brackets can be difficult to follow due to mechanical transitions.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is limited and minimally adequate for the task. There is noticeable awkwardness in word choice, such as "yearly salary" instead of "annual income" and "a major number of people earned their salary 100,000 dollars or more". Spelling and word-form errors, such as "housholds", appear throughout the response. The student attempts to use numerical and comparative language, but noticeable errors in lexical collocation and precision cause some difficulty for the reader in understanding the exact financial categories being reported.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response demonstrates a very limited range of sentence structures, relying primarily on simple statements of fact that often omit necessary auxiliary verbs and prepositions, resulting in awkward passive constructions like "money earned by 29 million". Attempts at complex structures or lists are frequently faulty, and there are frequent errors in basic grammatical patterns and punctuation, such as missing spaces after commas and run-on phrasing. These errors are frequent and can cause some difficulty for the reader in parsing the intended meaning.

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