Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-11-01

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The graph below shows average carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions per person in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy and Portugal between 1967 and 2007.

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The given line graph illustrates average carbon dioxide emissions per resident in the United Kingdon, Sweden, Italy and Portugal from the year 1967 to 2007.

Overall, half of the countries show a steep decline whereas the other half show a significant growth over the years for producing carbon dioxide on individual basis.

The United Kingdom had the highest contribution for global emission however it show a negative trend throughout the years while the Sweden was the country scoring second in the subject. However the country saw a drastic fall just after its peak in year 1977 due to its restrictions and later led to be least country producing the carbon emission. In addition to that, Italy had began was at 4 whereas Portugal started below 2 at the right side of the graph. Moreover both the countries had saw steedy increase in producing the global carbon footprint over the duration of 40 years.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You identify the overall contrast between declining emissions in the UK and Sweden and rising figures in Italy and Portugal, and you note the UK remained the highest. These are relevant main features. However, the overview is too broad: the UK declined gradually, not steeply, and Italy’s rise levelled off at the end rather than continuing to grow. Some comparisons are also inaccurate or unclear. Sweden did not become the lowest-emitting country; Portugal was slightly lower in 2007, while both finished at about 5.4 tonnes. The claim that Sweden fell “due to its restrictions” is unsupported by the graph. To make the summary more complete, report key endpoint figures and describe the main changes more precisely.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a basic overall structure, moving from an introduction to an overview and then to country details. Linking expressions such as “Overall,” “However” and “Moreover” show an attempt to connect ideas. However, progression within the final paragraph is difficult to follow: the discussion shifts from the UK and Sweden to Italy and Portugal without clearly separating the comparisons. Some links are also awkward or repetitive, particularly the two uses of “However.” The phrase “In addition to that” does not clearly signal the relationship between the preceding and following information. Use one paragraph for the overall trends and organise the details into clear comparisons, with references that make each country’s trend easy to track.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use a reasonable range of topic-related vocabulary, including “emissions,” “negative trend,” “drastic fall” and “steady increase,” and the meaning is generally understandable. There are also attempts at more formal phrasing, such as “per resident” and “on individual basis.” However, several expressions are unnatural or imprecise for describing a graph: “highest contribution for global emission” suggests a share of worldwide emissions, which the chart does not show, and “producing the global carbon footprint” is not an accurate description of the data. Spelling errors such as “Kingdon” and “steedy” also reduce accuracy. Prefer concise, conventional collocations for quantities and trends, and check spelling carefully.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including a contrast in “whereas the other half show a significant growth” and a longer sentence about Sweden’s peak and subsequent decline. However, errors in verb forms and agreement occur in several places and sometimes make the meaning harder to follow. For example, “it show” should be “it showed,” “Italy had began was at 4” contains an incorrect and duplicated verb construction, and “both the countries had saw” should be “both countries saw.” Articles and sentence construction also need attention in “while the Sweden was the country scoring second.” Practise forming past-tense descriptions consistently and keep complex sentences controlled; accurate simple sentences are preferable to tangled constructions.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.