Band 7.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 7.0 · Cambridge IELTS 18 · 2026-10-09

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 7.0)

The bar chart gives information about number of households in the the United States by their yearly income in 2007, 2011 and 2015.

Overall, highest income bracket ($100,000 or more) contained the highest number of households in 2007 and 2015, while the $75,000-$99,999 income group has remained the smallest catogory across all three years. Additionally, households earing more then $100,000 experienced the most significant increase by 2015, whereas the middle income group ($50,000-$74,999 and $75,000-$99,999) have remained stable troughout the period.

In 2007, around 30 million household earned $100,000 or more, making it the largest group, before dipping slightly to approximatlely 28 million in 2011. However, by 2015 this group grew significantly reaching peak of over 33 million households.Conversaly, lowest income household earning less then $25,000 started at around 25 million in 2007, rose to nearly 30 million in 2011, and plateaued around 28 million in 2015.

The $25,000–$49,999 category remained relatively large and stable throughout the period, starting at 27 million households in 2007, reaching nearly 30 million in 2011, and ending at around 28.5 million in 2015. The $50,000–$74,999 bracket consistently hovered around 21 million households in all three years. Meanwhile, the $75,000–$99,999 bracket represented the lowest proportion overall, remaining virtually unchanged at roughly 14 million to 15 million households between 2007 and 2015

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.5

The response selects the main patterns and supports them with relevant figures. The overview correctly identifies the $100,000-or-more group as largest in 2007 and 2015, the $75,000–$99,999 group as smallest throughout, and the strong rise in the highest-income category by 2015. Most reported values and trends match the chart. One detail to refine is the claim that the middle-income groups “have remained stable”: the $75,000–$99,999 category changes only slightly, but the $25,000–$49,999 group rises from about 27 million to nearly 30 million before falling. Also, the highest-income group was not the largest in 2011, a distinction your overview appropriately limits to the other two years. More precise comparison of these fluctuations would strengthen an already well-supported summary.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.0

The response is organised effectively: an introduction is followed by a clear overview and then two paragraphs grouping related income categories. The progression from the highest and lowest brackets to the remaining groups is easy to follow, and linking expressions such as “Overall,” “However,” and “Meanwhile” help signal relationships. Some cohesion could be more precise. “Conversely” introduces the lowest-income trend, but the contrast with the highest-income group is not especially direct; a simpler transition such as “By comparison” would fit better. The overview also groups both middle categories as stable, although one fluctuates more noticeably. Ensure that paragraph-level summaries and later details align closely, and use transitions to express the exact relationship between trends.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

There is an adequate range of task-appropriate vocabulary, including “income bracket,” “dipping slightly,” “plateaued,” “hovered around,” and “virtually unchanged.” These choices help describe movement and stability without relying entirely on repeated basic verbs. However, several spelling errors—“catogory,” “earing,” “troughout,” “approximatlely,” and “Conversaly”—reduce accuracy, and some phrasing is imprecise: “lowest proportion” refers to a share, whereas the chart reports numbers of households. “Yearly income” is understandable, though “annual income” is more formal and natural for this task. Continue using varied trend language, but proofread spelling and choose terms that accurately describe the chart’s units and comparisons.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.5

The response uses a mix of simple and more complex structures, including the overview’s contrast with “whereas” and the sentence describing the highest-income group’s rise. Most sentences communicate the intended trends clearly, but some grammatical errors remain. The opening has a repeated article in “the the United States,” and “number of households” needs an article or plural construction. There are also agreement and verb-form problems in “the $75,000–$99,999 income group has remained” alongside the plural “households … have remained,” and “household earned” should be plural. Punctuation is missing after “households” in “reaching peak of over 33 million households.Conversely.” These are generally understandable, but careful editing of articles, agreement, and sentence boundaries would improve control.

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